In previous articles, I have discussed the importance of managing claims to reduce their overall cost, thus protecting your experience rating. Those discussions have focused on protecting your experience rating with the view to reducing your workers’ compensation costs. 

But there are other reasons for protecting your experience rating, besides your workers’ compensation costs. A poor rating may not only result in a premium surcharge from your compensation board, it may also cost your business in terms of lost revenue.

 On June 13, 2008, the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board of Ontario issued the “Fatal Claim Premium Adjustment” policy that cancels rebates earned by employers in the case of a workplace fatality.

The WSIB’s new policy is anti-employer and arguably puts fault back into a workers’ compensation system that has been based on a no-fault principle since its inception in 1914 under the Meredith principle. The WSIB offered little explanation for this dramatic policy change, which appears to have been implemented further to avoid media scrutiny and to further punish employers.