It’s a 10.4% recommended rate increase in the state’s advisory pure premium rates effective September 1, 2026. The Workers’ Compensation Insurance Rating Bureau’s insurer majority just approved it as the Bureau’s recommendation. The Bureau says it will make the filing with Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara official before the end of the month.
The Bureau is a private organization with quasi-governmental responsibility. It is financially supported exclusively by insurance carriers in whose interests it operates.
The rate hike, if approved, will be the second in a row after rates either held steady or declined each year for more than a decade. The turn in rates and the impending end of the Newsom administration have employers and carriers primed to negotiate with organized labor for another round of workers’ comp reforms.
The proposed 10.4% increase was adopted over a competing recommendation for a smaller 5.1% increase, submitted by the actuary representing employers and labor. The public members backed their actuary’s recommendation; nevertheless, the insurer majority voted in solidarity to reject that recommendation, then voted to go with the Bureau’s internal proposal.
Workers’ Comp Executive’s next premium edition will delve deeply into the issues and trends driving the increase.
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