Workers’ Compensation Costs to Drop for 10th Straight Year

September 14, 2022

Workers’ Compensation Costs to Drop for 10th Straight Year

According to the Oregon Department of Consumer and Business Services, “In 2023, Oregon employers, on average, will pay less for workers’ compensation coverage … The decline in costs marks 10 years of average decreases in the pure premium rate – the base rate insurers use to determine how much employers must pay for medical costs and lost wages.” NFIB Oregon has been instrumental for the past four decades in lobbying for reforms to the workers’ compensation system and is happy to see it bearing fruit. In 2016, small-business owners nationally ranked workers’ compensation costs as their 13th biggest problem, according to NFIB’s quadrennial Small Business Problems & Priorities report, which measures 75 issues. In 2020, the ranking had fallen to 22nd. According to the DCBS news release issued September 1:

“Employers, on average, will pay 93 cents per $100 of payroll for workers’ compensation costs in 2023, down from 97 cents in 2022, under a proposal by DCBS. That figure covers workers’ compensation claims costs, assessments, and insurer profit and expenses.
“The pure premium rate will drop by an average 3.2 percent under the proposal. In fact, the pure premium – filed by a national rate-setting organization and reviewed by DCBS – will have declined by 49 percent during the 2014 to 2023 period.”