The campaign to take Pinnacol Assurance’s future to voters has been shelved after business and labor groups reached a late-session agreement to pursue a legislative overhaul instead.

A joint statement Thursday from Pinnacol, the state’s largest workers’ compensation provider, and Colorado Succeeds said the ballot measure approved for petition circulation is being withdrawn in favor of a “legislative solution.”

Toward the end of the 2026 legislative session, a legislative proposal sponsored by Senate Majority Leader Robert Rodriguez, D-Denver, showed a new path forward.

A draft obtained by Colorado Politics showed that Pinnacol would remain the state’s insurer of last resort, one of the sticking points to allowing Pinnacol to privatize.

The draft legislation said that Pinnacol would become a special-purpose authority and be treated as a mutual insurance company, allowing it to sell its insurance products in other states. That ability to expand beyond Colorado is the main reason Pinnacol wants to separate from the state.

Under current law in Colorado and other states, a political subdivision of the state, such as Pinnacol, cannot sell insurance outside its jurisdiction.

Pinnacol officials say these restrictions hurt the company’s financial performance. They note that Colorado businesses with employees in other states can’t purchase workers’ compensation coverage from Pinnacol, which means the company loses potential customers. Even so, Pinnacol remains the state’s largest workers’ compensation insurer, holding about half of the market.

Under the current bill, Pinnacol’s board would change from nine to 11 members and, for the first time, would add a union representative from a statewide organization representing building and construction trade workers.

The governor would appoint six members; Pinnacol would appoint five.

But the union, notably AFL-CIO, remained opposed to separation and refused to negotiate, sources said.

No longer willing to wait, Colorado Succeeds, a coalition of business CEOs, was ready to move forward, depositing more than $252,000 into an issue committee.

The Thursday statement said that leaders from Pinnacol, the Colorado Building and Construction Trades Council, IBEW 111, and Colorado Succeeds reached an agreement on a shared framework to guide Pinnacol’s modernization, and that this agreement prompted Colorado Succeeds to withdraw its ballot measure.

“Rather than pursuing divergent strategies, including a potential ballot measure, our organizations are instead committed to working toward a unified effort to pursue a legislative solution to modernize Pinnacol, while strengthening workforce development and skilled trades pathways critical to Colorado’s economy,” the statement said.

The framework includes many of the tenets of the Rodriguez bill, including keeping Pinnacol’s employees in the state pension plan, keeping Pinnacol as the insurer of last resort, and updating board governance.

The framework will also work to strengthen “long-term state investment in registered apprenticeships, skilled trades training, and other talent pipelines essential to Colorado’s economy and workers’ compensation system.”

Pinnacol President John O’Donnell said in the statement, “We were deeply encouraged by the late-session breakthrough requested by legislative leadership to modernize the company and remain affiliated with the state.”

Scott LaBand, CEO and president of Colorado Succeeds, said, “Colorado Succeeds has spent months leading conversations across the state about how to strengthen Colorado’s workforce and economy. We heard a consistent message: Pinnacol is a cornerstone of that system, and both employers and labor are firmly invested in its future. Based on that feedback, our coalition is pausing the ballot measure while we work toward a smarter, more unified solution.”

According to Jeremy Ross, the political coordinator for IBEW 111, “The recent tension around fully privatizing Pinnacol has created an unsustainable risk for workers,” and ignoring it is no longer an option.

“IBEW is committed to pursuing action to ensure that Pinnacol’s statute keeps up with modern times, while ensuring that men and women who are putting their lives on the line each day to support our community do not lose access to our state’s strongest safety net for injured workers.”