Commissioner Thomas E. Hampton of the District of Columbia Department of Insurance, Securities and Banking (DISB) announced today that DISB recently approved the 2008 workers’ compensation rate filings by the National Council on Compensation Insurance (NCCI), which includes a decrease of 7.6 percent for the industrial classes in the voluntary market, and a decrease of 10.6 percent for the industrial classes in the residual market (those in the assigned risk category).

“With lower workers’ compensation rates, the District’s premium cost will be more competitive with our neighboring jurisdictions,” said Commissioner Hampton adding that the new rates will be effective November 1. “Even further, these lower, more attractive rates may give District companies the opportunity to create more employment for District residents, as well as to increase their bottom line.”

In the District of Columbia, workers’ compensation insurance is mandatory for employers on all employees. According to Commissioner Hampton, the rate decreases were a result of an overall decline in claim frequency, and less severity in the claims amount. These decreases are in addition to the voluntary decrease of 7.9 percent and assigned risk decrease of 5.6 percent for 2007.

The 2006 decrease in claim frequency extended a trend that started in the 1990s, according to the NCCI, a statistical company that compiles information from insurance companies, analyzes trends, prepares workers’ compensation rate recommendations, and provides a variety of services and tools to maintain a healthy workers’ compensation system. The decline seems to have become just as prominent among the medium and large claims, as it is for the small claims.

Commissioner Hampton noted that while most of the insurance companies will use the NCCI-recommended rates, different additional expenses might add to the rates that each company sets. 

The Government of the District of Columbia Department of Insurance, Securities and Banking (DISB) regulates all financial-service businesses in the District of Columbia. DISB has two overall missions: to provide fair, efficient and fast regulatory supervision of financial-service activities for the protection of the people of the District of Columbia; and to create conditions that will attract and retain national and international insurance, securities, banking and other financial-services businesses to the District.