At the end of April 2017, icare announced 2018 claims service partners for the NSW Workers Compensation scheme. As a shock to most in the industry, icare communicated that EML had been successful in being selected as the sole agent for new NSW cworkers compensation claims effective from 1 January 2018. This is a major change for NSW with the remaining 4 existing agents (i.e. Allianz, CGU, GIo & QBE) existing at various times.
icare recently announced the launch a pilot program trialling the use of an independent panel of medical providers. This initiative is hoped to provide various benefits including decreasing time currently taken to approve injured worker treatments.
Do you understand your business’ safety obligations required for WHS compliance? If not, we hope this article might help encourage you to revisit this important aspect more closely. A NSW small business was recently fined a record $1 million for Work Health & Safety (WHS) offences. The NSW District Court found that WGA Pty Ltd had breached it’s safety obligations under the Work Health and Safety Act 2011 by exposing a sub-contractor to risk of death or serious injury.
After a new client engaged ABILITY GROUP to assist with a complex claim, our efforts secured a fantastic outcome that will save our client approx. $400,000 in premium increases. By the time we were involved, solicitors and an arbitration date we already booked. The insurer had communicated very little to the client and what the injured worker was seeking through a settlement was a large amount that would have significantly impacted their premium.
Earlier this afternoon, icare announced the 2018 NSW workers compensation agents. Following CGU announcing their exit from NSW workers compensation, further important changes were announced today by icare. Per our previous articles it was widely expected the current 5 agents (Allianz, CGU, EML, GIO & QBE) would be reduced to 3 for 2018 onward.
Given the timing of today’s announcement, it is our current understanding that from 2018 onward, the following will occur: