The WSIB’s switch to a new rate framework for employers in January 2020 will hit injured workers with a double whammy. Both the new and old rate systems are based on experience rating, which raises employers’ rates when accident cost or frequency goes up.
That sounds like it could pressure employers to make safer workplaces but research does not support that. Instead it creates a financial incentive to avoid reporting injuries or to treat serious injuries as no lost time injuries by forcing the injured back to work without time to heal. We hear about it every day with car insurance: people don’t report accidents to their insurer for fear of a rate increase. They settle under the table.
Under the old system, experience rating was done through rebates and surcharges based on claims records. A recent article by an employer-side law firm notes that since the old system is being phased out “it is highly important to address any outstanding employer reconsiderations, objections and appeals as soon as possible and before the WSIB stops making retroactive adjustments.”
Translation: employers should pursue all possible appeals against injured workers.
Under the new system, employers’ rates will be adjusted each year based on past claims experience. The legal advice to employers is that “even ‘no lost time’ claims can have an overall impact on premium calculation because rates will be calculated by considering insurable earnings, the number of claims and claims costs. Given these influential variables, injury prevention, duly managing early and safe return to work to reduce claim severity, and diligently objecting to/appealing unjust WSIB decisions will be paramount in the new system.
Translation: employers should pursue all possible appeals against injured workers.
This follows the government’s announcement last September that the WSIB will cut the average premium rate for employers by almost 30 per cent, starting January 1, 2019 which will give employers $1.45 billion. The WSIB has achieved its financial success by cutting benefits paid to injured workers in half since 2010.