Hawaii Workers’ Compensation Coststo Drop Again for Fifth Year in a Row

Workers’ compensation insurers in Hawaii have filed to reduce by 4.1 percent the loss cost factor that goes into the rates charged to employers.

This marks the fifth year in a row that workers’ compensation loss costs have gone down.

The state insurance division said that the decrease requested by the National Council on Compensation Insurance (NCCI) would affect premiums beginning Jan. 1, 2010 if approved. The NCCI rates are used by individual insurers in setting their own prices that also reflect expenses and profit.

The NCCI filing is based on a continuing decrease in the number of claims filed in 2007. Over the last four years, Hawaii Insurance Commissioner J.P. Schmidt has approved decreases of 19.3 percent, 18.2 percent, 12.3 percent and 11.6 percent in loss costs as evidence continued to show a reduction in claims.

This latest reduction brings the total decrease in workers’ compensation loss costs to 65.5 percent over the past five years.

“This is the largest workers’ compensation insurance rate decline of any state in the nation, except possibly those states that have enacted major statutory reforms,” said Schmidt.