Ohio: Board sets public employer rate-making guidelines

The Ohio Bureau of Workers' Compensation's board of directors recently modified two tables that impact experience-based rate adjustments for public employers.

Beginning Jan. 1, 2011, the credibility table for public employer taxing districts will have a maximum value of 65 percent and lower eligibility requirements, allowing smaller employers to earn adjustments based on their own claim experience. For those in group rating, the revised break-even factor table will allow them to achieve a maximum discount of 59 percent. Public employer taxing districts include approximately 3,900 cities, counties, villages, townships, schools and special districts throughout Ohio.

Marsha Ryan, administrator of the BWC, said the move aligns the public employer taxing district credibility table with that of private employers, which went into effect July 1. The break-even factor is applied in conjunction with the credibility table to assist the agency in setting rates for all public employer taxing districts that reflect their level of risk.

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"As PECs look for ways to continue their work with fewer and fewer resources, BWC has lowered their rates by an average 17 percent since last year and is now taking steps to bring improved accuracy and better consistency to their premiums," Ryan said. "Comprehensive reform is benefiting public employers as well as their counterparts in the private sector by bringing more equity to what every Ohio employer pays for their workers' compensation insurance coverage."

Privacy measures. The board also adopted internal operational rules for confidential personal information. Gov. Ted Strickland issued a directive requiring all state agencies to adopt a detailed implementation plan that evaluates all personal information systems maintained by each agency and to develop policy and administrative rules governing the use and access of confidential personal information.

The BWC's rule requires valid reasons and procedures for accessing confidential personal information, catalogs confidentiality statutes, establishes criteria for giving agency employees access to confidential personal information, and sets procedures for documenting employee access.

Read more at the WorkersComp Forum homepage.

August 19, 2010

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