THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, July 17, 1996 TAG: 9607170319
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: D6 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY TOM SHEAN, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: 46 lines
For the second consecutive year, a rate-advisory service for the insurance industry is seeking a reduction in workers' compensation rates in Virginia.
The National Council on Compensation Insurance Inc. has filed for a 4.2 percent decrease in the base rates for workers' compensation.
``We see continued improvements in trends for the medical side and the wage-replacement side,'' said Marie Kinietz, a spokeswoman for the council's Richmond office.
Workers' compensation, which most employers are required to provide, pays the medical expenses of work-related injuries and covers a portion of an injured worker's wages.
Insurance agents said the declining rates for workers' compensation insurance reflected the safety measures that many employers had installed in the workplace and their improved control of health-care costs.
Employers and insurers have been much quicker to check with injured employees and to get them back to work in a limited-duty status, said Lowery D. ``Tuck'' Finley III, a vice president at the Virginia Beach office of the insurance agency Hilb, Rogal and Hamilton Co. of Virginia.
In contrast to a few years ago, when agents wondered whether they could find workers' compensation insurance for clients, agents have been competing aggressively to provide workers' compensation insurance, Finley said.
The proposed 4.2 percent reduction in workers' compensation insurance rates is an average for the rates of 600 job classifications. Changes for particular employers also would depend on the company's history of claims.
However, the National Council on Compensation Insurance also has filed with Virginia regulators for a 10.4 percent increase in the base rates for the assigned-risk part of the workers' compensation market. The assigned-risk market is typically the last resort for employers who have difficulty getting regular coverage.
In 1995, the number of Virginia employers using the assigned risk market dropped for the second consecutive year to 25,760. That was down from a peak of 29,489 employers in 1993.
Last year, the assigned-risk market accounted for slightly more than 24 percent of the workers' compensation premiums paid in Virginia. That compared with a 29 percent share of total workers' compensation premiums paid in 1994 and a 32.6 percent share in 1993.
The State Corporation Commission has scheduled a hearing on workers' compensation rates for Oct. 16. Any changes in rates would take effect for insurance policies written or renewed on Jan. 1, 1997, or later. by CNB