Today, ICBA -- as a member of the Employers' Forum, was briefed on provisional 2027 WorkSafeBC rates.
WorkSafeBC wants you looking at one number: 1.55%. The average base premium rate hasn't moved in a decade (and won't in 2027, according to today's briefing) , and the Board is calling that "rate stability." But let's look at what that number is hiding.
The real cost of running WorkSafeBC in 2027 isn't 1.55%. It's 1.88%. So how do they hold the line? They cover the gap with $677 million of surplus. That's your money, handed back and rebranded as a rate hold. Pile on the credits and it's $960 million more out the door in one year. Since 2019, $3.9 billion more. That's not stability. That's a savings account being drained to keep the sticker price down.
And WorkSafe knows the bill is coming. It's in their own forecast. The base rate holds at 1.55% through 2027, then climbs every year after. 1.59 in 2028. Then 1.64. Then 1.69. Then 1.74 by 2031.
The freeze has an expiry date.
And for many companies, it won't be a freeze at all. Forty-eight per cent of employers, about 132,000 firms, are getting a base-rate increase next year. Only 30% see a cut. The devil will be in the details: will construction be one of the industries that goup?
Why are costs climbing? Claims. Total claim and operating costs hit $4.3 billion in 2025, up from $3.6 billion two years earlier. A 21% jump. The duration numbers tell you why. The average claim now runs 77.5 days, up almost 11 days since 2021. Three-quarters of that increase comes from chronic-pain and psychological claims that take longer and cost far more to run. Meanwhile the funded level has slipped from 146% in 2022 to 139%. WorkSafe projects it sliding to 134% by 2030, walking straight toward its own 130% floor.
All of this "rate stability" leans on investment returns. WorkSafe earned 7.6% last year and beat its required return. That's the crutch holding rates flat. That will work right up until the markets don't - and no one can guarantee the future.
So look past the number they want you to see. Forget 1.55%. The number that matters is 1.88%, the real cost of the system, and it only goes one way from here. The 2027 rate hold isn't a gift. It looks like the last year before the bill comes due.