Employers and businesses who operate in New South Wales and Victoria need to be aware of some quite significant changes across both schemes in the lead up to this 30 June 2024.
In NSW the Nominal Insurer scheme (icare) continues to evolve off the feedback given by employers, broker partners and injured workers alike.
In 2018 we saw what effectively became a single-claims provider scheme commence.
The ‘Authorised Provider’ model was the first step in July 2020 in rewinding the single-provider model, offering choice of claims provider to the largest customers within the scheme.
This coming 30th June 2024, the Medium sized employers (Average Performance Premium of $200,000 to $500,000) will now also have choice of claims provider.
What this means is employers with a policy of this size will qualify to have their Workers Compensation claims managed by any of the following NSW scheme agents and will be required to stipulate at renewal who they would like this to be:
- EML
- QBE Insurance
- Allianz Insurance
- GIO Insurance
- Gallaher Bassett, or
- DXC (formally known as Xchanging)
The Workers Compensation Risk team at Warren Saunders Insurance Brokers work closely with all these providers and are here to help if you need any advice/ recommendations or support in this area. Please just reach out to your WSIB representative.
In VIC, legislation which has passed through Parliament will see changes to entitlements for mental or psychological injuries. The changes will see claims being made for incidents or events that are “typical and reasonably expected to occur” in the course of employment be more heavily scrutinised and more likely be declined at eligibility review. Claims arising through interpersonal conflict whose being claimed as bullying or harassment are one example of claims more likely to be rejected than accepted under the changes.
Another significant change to the Act which has also been passed is the entitlement to long-term tail claims, whose eligibility criteria for ongoing benefits beyond 2.5 years has increased. This could make it harder for injured workers with long term injury and illness to seek benefits under the Victorian workers compensation laws, however WSIB would expect the interpretation of these laws to be much clearer over the course of time once the new legislation is tested through appeals processes in the future.
Should you have any questions in regard to the above updates, or anything specific to your Workers Compensation program, do not hesitate to contact us here at WSIB at team@wsib.com.au or (02) 9587 3500.
