Relief coming to employers after stretch of higher WorkSafeNB premiums

After three consecutive years of increasing workers compensation premiums, employers in New Brunswick are about to get a reprieve.

Rates are projected to fall by about 25 cents per $100 in payroll, reducing the average assessment from $2.65, which ties Nova Scotia for the highest in the country, to about $2.40 or possibly less.

WorkSafeNB president and CEO Douglas Jones said recent changes to legislation have helped reduce costs.

But he said more could be done to improve workplace safety culture, especially in the province's 12,000 small businesses.

The death of a 22-year-old tow-truck driver in Kouchibouguac on Wednesdaybrings the number ofacute workplace fatalities, meaning they occurred as a result of sudden injury on the job, this year in New Brunswick to six.

The annual average, over the past decade, is under four.

Jones said his long-term goal is to further reduce rates to about $2 per $100 of payroll within two to three years and well below that inthe next five yearswhile also improving benefits.

While he said that may sound implausible,other provinces are already there.

He pointed to Manitoba, where premiums are assessed at less than $1 per $100 in payroll, and maximum insurable earnings are capped at $127,000.

Albertans pay $1.08 and there is no cap.

In New Brunswick, the cap is set at $64,800.

Doing its job

That rate was 80 per cent in the first year, 75 per cent in the second year, and 45 per cent in the third year, according to tribunal chairDaniel Theriault. He told CBC News in a 2018 interview that it was the tribunal's duty to make sure that WorkSafeNB followed the law.

Those decisions increased payouts by as much as $100 million per year, concluded the task force.

Jones said the tribunal was just doing its job.

"I wouldn't put any of the blame on the appeals tribunal," he said. "We've been cleaning up some of the legislation now that we should have done two or three years ago."

Jones said savings have also been found by changing the way hearing-loss claims are managed.

He said the system was paying for hearing losses that were likely associated with aging, not just those that were work-related.

More changes needed

Looking ahead, Jone said he'd like to see more efficient reporting of workplace accidents and injured workers back on the job, sooner.

One of the biggest cost drivers for WorkSafeNB is time away from work.

Jones saidit would help if an employer's duty to accommodate an injured worker were embedded in the Workers' Compensation Act.