WSIB premiums increase

Thursday, January 3, 2013

by SUSAN MANN

Ontario’s Workplace Safety and Insurance Board premium rates for all employer rate groups including the farming ones went up by 2.5 per cent this year.

Lynden-area horticultural farmer Ken Forth says nobody wants an increase “but it’s pretty marginal.”

Workplace Safety and Insurance Board spokesperson Christine Arnott says the increase went into effect Jan. 1.

In a press release last October announcing the rate change, Workplace Safety and Insurance Board chair Elizabeth Witmer says the increase is necessary to reduce the organization’s unfunded liability, which has grown to $14.2 billion.

While the premium rate increase may add costs today, the retirement of the unfunded liability will result in lower premiums and strengthen the competitiveness for Ontario businesses in the longer term, she says.

Forth says costs, such as medical care, treatments plus rehabilitation programs, have skyrocketed during the past 20 years. “That’s also why there’s an unfunded liability too. The costs just went up and they (WSIB) did not put the rates up to keep up with that problem.”

Still Forth, a former director of agriculture for WSIB, says it’s an insurance system that actually does work.  “There are a lot of dedicated people who really do a hell of a good job.”

He notes that the premiums apply to not only full-time, year-round employees but also seasonal agricultural workers who come to Canada as part of the seasonal agricultural worker program.

For every $100 of payroll, the rate changes in 2013 compared to 2012 are:

• Livestock farms – $7.09 from $6.92,
• Field crops along with fruit and vegetable operations – $2.84 from $2.77
• Tobacco and mushroom farms – $5.15 from $5.03
• Fishing and miscellaneous farms – $3.67 from $3.58
• Poultry farms and agricultural services – $3.27 from $3.19 BF