St. John’s, NL – Effective January 1, 2019, WorkplaceNL is applying a $0.21 discount to its average assessment rate, to reduce the rate from $1.90 to $1.69 per $100 of payroll for employers in Newfoundland and Labrador. This is the lowest average assessment rate paid by employers in over thirty-five years.
This temporary discount is to reduce the Injury Fund’s surplus over a number of years, and return it to the targeted 110 per cent funded ratio. Approximately $16 million of the surplus will be used annually to pay for a portion of workplace injuries rather than collect that amount directly from employers. This is in accordance with the stakeholder-agreed funding policy.
Assessment rates are premiums paid by employers to cover expected costs of workplace injuries, return-to-work programs, prevention initiatives and the cost of administering the workers’ compensation system.
As well, the Maximum Compensable and Assessable Earnings (MCAE) will increase by 1.9 per cent to $65,600, the highest in Atlantic Canada. This reflects the annual Consumer Price Index adjustment. Wage-loss benefits for injured workers submitting a new claim whose pre-injury earnings are at or above $65,600 will be calculated using this new limit starting January 1, 2019.
“As a responsible steward of the Injury Fund, WorkplaceNL continues to work with employers, workers, labour, safety associations and other safety partners to help prevent workplace injury and illness, and improve services for injured workers and their employers should an incident occur,” said Dennis Hogan, CEO, WorkplaceNL. “I look forward to continuing to work cooperatively with all of our partners to ensure that we maintain a financially sustainable workers’ compensation system.”
The complete Classification of Industries and Assessment Rates – 2019 is available via workplacenl.ca.
Notices of assessment rates for employers will be online this week. WorkplaceNL is moving to mandatory online services for employers as of December 31, 2019. Employers who have not yet done so are encouraged to register for a connect (online service) account.
More information is available in the Backgrounder below.
About WorkplaceNL
Serving approximately 13,000 injured workers and 18,500 employers, WorkplaceNL administers an employer-funded, no fault insurance system that promotes safe and healthy workplaces, provides return-to-work programs and offers fair compensation to injured workers and their dependents.
Background
Discounted Assessment Rate
Statistics
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