Could employers face a 22% hike in icare premiums?

Hundreds of thousands of employers may be seeing a premium increase of up to thousands of dollars as state insurer icare is planning to ask for a premium hike of 22%, according to a new report.

The Sydney Morning Herald reported on Friday that icare wants to hike insurance premium for more than 330,000 employers in the next financial year.

For about 310,000 employers who are paying less than $30,000 in workers' compensation, they may be seeing an average increase of $654, according to the Herald, which cited icare's internal briefing documents.

For over 20,000 employers paying more than $30,000, the average increase would by $20,033. For 1,000 employers paying more than $500,000, the increase could hit $97,492.

This increase would be followed by staged hikes to 2029 that would make costs hit as high as $719 million, according to the Herald report.

The reported hike seeks to make NSW workers' compensation scheme, known as the Nominal Insurer, to remain financially viable.

A spokesperson from icare told the Herald that it was "not appropriate" for the company to comment on the news as the Insurance and Care NSW has not yet filed its workers' compensation premium filing for the 2023-24 financial year.

The State Insurance Regulatory Authority, which will receive the filing from icare, told the Herald that it will assess the filing once it is lodged.

Underpayment controversies

Icare is a government agency that exercises the functions of the Nominal Insurer, which covers more than three million employees for weekly payments and any medical treatments should they get injured at work.

However, icare has also become the subject of underpayment controversies as of late, the Herald reported.

In November 2022, the Herald uncovered an incident panel review that revealed an estimated 8,900 injured workers who are potentially affected by underpayments.

This is not the first reported incident of underpayment by the agency, after the Herald in 2020 found that it underpaid 52,000 injured workers by up to $80 million.

In 2021, icare said in a statement that it has initiated a targeted outreach campaign to find the affected injured employees.

"Getting injured workers their correct historical entitlements is an absolute priority for me and I want to make sure they receive them as quickly as possible whereever we can," said icare CEO Richard Harding in a previous statement.