California Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones went against a unified front of labor and employer representatives siding with the insurance industry and the Workers’ Compensation Insurance Rating Bureau (WCIRB) in approving another increase of 8.3% mid-year. This is in addition to the already heavilly increased 37% rate hike that was approved back in January of this year. So far in the new year, employers are facing an average rate increase of 45.3% over last year!
“The primary increase in California’s workers’ compensation costs is with medical costs,” Jones says in his decision. “Per unit medical costs do not appear to be increasing much, but medical utilization appears to be the main driver of overall cost increases.”
