Demonstrating yet again that a competitive workers’ compensation insurance market lowers employers’ costs, Oregon announced the workers’ compensation rates employers in that state pay will decrease in 2011. The 1.8 percent decrease employers will enjoy next year continues Oregon’s trend of not increasing rates in 21 years; and since 2006 rates have actually decreased by 13 percent.
The rate stability resulting from Oregon’s competitive workers’ comp market has saved employers a staggering $18.2 billion since 1990.
Oregon’s rate decrease comes on the heels of West Virginia’s announcement that employers’ rates will decrease an average of 2.9 percent, effective November 1. That amounts to a $12 million savings to West Virginia employers — on top of last year’s 6 percent decrease, which translated into a $30 million annual savings for employers in that state.
Since West Virginia made the switch four years ago from a state_run workers’ comp monopoly to a system that allows private insurers to offer policies in a competitive market, rates have decreased an average of nearly 44 percent, saving employers over $150 million annually.
The Oregon and West Virginia experiences are in stark contrast to Washington’s state_run workers’ comp system, where workers’ comp tax rates have increased an average of nearly 54 percent over the past ten years, including a 7.6 percent rate hike in 2010 that cost our state’s employers an additional $117 million. And another increase is likely for 2011.
“While employers in states that have scrapped a government_run workers’ comp monopoly in favor of one allowing competition are reaping the benefits of steadily decreasing workers’ comp costs, employers in Washington are stuck paying more and more every year to prop up L&I’s failing system,” said Patrick Connor, NFIB/Washington State Director, a key supporter of I_1082, the business community’s measure to end the state’s workers’ comp monopoly. “That is money Washington’s employers could be using to grow their business and create more jobs.”
For more information on I_1082, visit www.SaveOurJobsWA.com and www.JobsNotLies.com.
