Barring an extraordinary decision by the Workers' Compensation Insurance Rating Bureau's governing committee to go against its own guidelines there will be no mid-year pure premium rate filing this year. The Bureau's actuarial committee just completed its review of the latest numbers and saw too little change from its January 1, 2010 filing to justify a new filing for July 1 policies.

This does not mean that some, perhaps many, carriers will not raise rates, just that the Bureau will not be making a new filing.

Under guidelines adopted by the Bureau, a mid-year filing is called for only when the indicated change is plus or minus five points from the recommended change in its annual filing. In this case, the indicated change was within a tenth of a point of the January filing when an off-balance adjustment is eliminated -- an increase of 21.5% compared to 21.6%. WCIRB chief actuary Dave Bellusci noted that the off-balance adjustment is only included in the annual filing.

The Bureau's overall recommendation for January 1 policies was a 22.8% increase, but Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner opted against any increase in the workers' compensation claims cost benchmark (AKA the pure premium rate).

Look for additional coverage of the actuarial committee's review of the 2009 experience and the on-going impact of the Almaraz/Guzman and Ogilvie decisions in the next premium edition.

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Filed in San Francisco by Brad Cain