The NSW Government has introduced major reforms to the Workers Compensation Scheme, reshaping how employers, brokers, and workers engage with icare. These changes are designed to improve sustainability, streamline processes, and enhance support for injured workers
In the last 12 months, the NSW workers compensation industry has experienced dramatic change. As we approach 30 June 2016, it should be relieving for businesses to know that for there are no changes for workers compensation WorkCover Industry Classification (WIC) rates. As 2016/17 rates for NSW Workers Compensation apply to all renewals that fall due at 4pm on 30th June 2016, businesses and brokers will now be receiving renewal notices for these policies without fear of rate driven increases.
For large employers, icare however announced changes to the Retro Paid Loss (RPL) model by introducing Loss Prevention & Recovery (LPR) scheme as the replacement. LPR is progressively moving closer to providing pricing similar to that of insurers in privately underwritten schemes. This is an important change for large business.
At ABILITY GROUP, we are proud to showcase the outstanding results of our specialist workplace rehabilitation provider, Health Ability, which has achieved a 100% Return-to-Work (RTW) rate. This milestone demonstrates the effectiveness of timely, tailored rehabilitation services in helping injured employees recover and reintegrate into the workplace
In 2015/16, many employers faced sharp increases in premiums due to prior year adjustments and a new renewal formula. For businesses with tariff premiums above $30,000, the impact was substantial, creating financial strain at the most critical time of year.
On the 4th of December 2015, icare (previously known as WorkCover NSW) announced further changes as a component of the NSW government ongoing NSW workers compensation reforms.
The latest reforms include benefit changes to injured employees in need of the highest benefits being those with a Whole Person Impairment (WPI) of >30%. In addition to this there were several other as well as additional changes.
Despite the NSW scheme changes taking effect back on 30 June 2015, the majority of medium to large NSW businesses are yet to receive their 2015/16 premium renewals. With iCare now authorising the NSW insurers to start processing 2015/16 renewal notices the challenge they now face is there is a 3-4 month backlog. Given the events over the last 4 months, we have covered this inside out. To help make these changes easier to understand, ABILITY GROUP provide a quick reference list below for our clients and partners: