TORONTO, ON – Some Ontario fleets will see a bump in their Workplace Safety and Insurance Board (WSIB) premiums for 2018.

The rise in rates were announced at the group’s annual general meeting Set. 20, while WSIB also announced a drop in rates for other industries, totaling about $760 million combined for 2017 and 2018.

Warehousing is among those seeing a cut, with a 7.5% decrease in premium rates from $2.95 per $100 of insurable earnings in 2017, to $2.73 per $100 of insurable earnings in 2018. The rates for general trucking, couriers, and waste materials recycling, however, will go up.

General trucking rates will rise 3.7% to $6.97 per $100 of insurable earnings, and couriers will see an increase to $3.14 per $100 of insurable earnings in 2018, from the current from $3.02 per $100 of insurable earnings.

Waste materials recycling will see the largest increase in the transportation sector, with an 8.1% increase year-over-year.

Jon Blackham, Ontario Trucking Association (OTA) director of policy and public affairs, says a large portion of the increases are due to the anticipated costs of a new provincially mandated policy. The Ontario Government has legislated the expansion of WSIB coverage to include work-related chronic mental stress starting in 2018.

“While the true impact of this move is not yet known, OTA will continue to work with the WSIB to ensure the Ontario trucking industry’s rates are fairly allocated as things move forward,” said Blackham.

WSIB says rates are calculated per group, not per employer, and there are 155 rate groups spread over the approximately 300,000 businesses and organizations in Ontario paying premiums into WSIB.

Rates are determined using three factors; new claims cost, which is a projection of the total future cost of injuries expected during the upcoming year; past claims cost, which is a charge intended to recover the WSIB’s unfunded liability – the gap between future obligations to injured workers and money on hand; and administration expenses.

WSIB will be offering technical rate training sessions in November to those employers who would like to better understand their premiums. Information and registration for those sessions can be found here.