Confirmed – WCIRB Files for 24.4% Pure Work Comp Premium Increase

What this means to you is that your Work Comp rates will increase 14-24% next year regardless of claims. It remains to be seen if Steve Poizner’s office (the Insurance Commissioner) will be able to stave this off as they did last year. (Cutting the schedule from 15% to 4% in 2008)

The Article Follows:

Under intense pressure to hold rates down the Governing Committee of the WCIRB, minutes ago, approved a 24.4% mid-term rate increase. It will be effective with new or renewal polices on or after July 1^st, 2009.  The Governing Committee withstood political calls for a lower filing and political pressure in favor of a rational approach to the reality of the situation. The meeting lasted nearly three hours.

Yesterday, Workers’ Comp Executive broke the news that the WCIRB actuarial committee was recommending a 27% increase attributing the causes to both medical cost inflation and specifically a 7% component increase to the recent en banc decisions by the Workers’ Comp Appeals Board (WCAB). The article also reported that this would likely bring an ignoble end to Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s 2004 workers’ comp reform.

Late in the afternoon Governor Schwarzenegger responded and issued a public letter to Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner expressing dismay… CONTINUED