So Long 2022! What’s in Store for 2023?
For many it’s good-bye and good riddance with the promise of a better year to come. For others, especially employers, this will continue to be unprecedented times as the world, and the economy, finds its new equilibrium. Rising inflation, interest rates and production costs combined with managing a workforce, whether it is new hires, returning workers, remote working, hybrid work setups or health and safety modifications, the challenges facing employers are significant. So as we head into 2023, here are three major things to consider: WCB Premiums. Workers compensation boards across the county have recently issued their premium rate statements. The impact that the pandemic has had on operations over the past couple of years could affect how a business should be classified. A careful review of your premium calculations could uncover hidden savings Not sure what to look for, here are 10 things to check on your premium rate […]
30 Seconds: National Day of Mourning in Canada
The statistics are startling and disturbing. According to the latest information from 2019, in Canada alone, there were a total of 925 work-related fatalities; that is approximately 3 lives each and every day. That same year, there were 271,806 time loss claims for work-related injury or disease recorded, an increase of 20,000 claims over 2017, suggesting that an acceptable Workers’ Compensation claim occurs every 30 seconds in our country. At this point, essentially every Canadian has been touched by workplace accidents or incidents either directly or by association. Last year, in Alberta, there were 178 deaths that resulted from workplace injuries or illnesses, that’s a work-related fatality every other day. The impact of work-related injuries and occupational diseases can be devastating, not only to the worker but to their families as well. The struggle to put lives back together and figure out how to cope and carry on following a […]
COVID-19 and WCB Claims
As COVID-19 continues to hold us in its grasp and businesses scramble to figure out how to survive the long term impact of the pandemic, new workers’ compensation issues are emerging. While essential businesses and services remain open, there will undoubtedly be work-related incidents and accidents and for the most part, those workers’ compensation claims will be processed as they always have been. However, the novel coronavirus is redefining guidelines as they relate to acceptable occupational disease claims, at least for now. Prior to this pandemic, acceptable Workers’ Compensation (WCB) claims were primarily limited to front line health care or emergency response workers who contracted a communicable disease, with few exceptions being made in individual circumstances. When the provincial and federal governments mandated the closure of non-essential businesses and ordered everyone to stay at home the goal was to stop the spread of the virus and control the pandemic. Workers […]
How Does the WCB Use Benefit of Doubt in Adjudicating Claims?
Although the large majority of Workers’ Compensation (WCB) claims are straightforward and easily adjudicated there are situations that are more contentious such as: unwitnessed accidents, injuries reported long after they occurred, employers contesting the validity of a claim, or non-compensable factors impacting a worker’s recovery Adjudication of these claims becomes problematic for the WCB as they try to make decisions based on little or no evidence in some instances and a plethora of conflicting information in others. In an attempt to address this, the WCB established Policy 01-03, Part I, Benefit of Doubt, which reads, in part: A worker is not required to provide proof beyond any reasonable doubt in support of a claim for compensation. Adjudication is determined on the balance of probabilities, based on all the facts. If, however, there is doubt on any issue because the evidence is approximately equal in supporting one or more decisions, WCB […]
WCB Alberta Employer Policy Review: Support Services
On October 1st, 2019, the Workers’ Compensation Board of Alberta (WCB) announced that it was entering Phase 2 of a high-level review of Employer accounts and premium policies and was looking for feedback, ideas and suggestions until December 2, 2019. Of particular interest to some Alberta employers are changes to Policy 07-01, Part II, Application 1, regarding businesses providing support services to an industry and how that business is classified. The WCB is proposing the following addition to the current policy: How does WCB classify a business providing support services to an industry? Businesses providing coordination, marketing, management or administration of a specific service which generates revenue from another business, will be classified in the industry it supports. For example, a fast food franchisor that provides only administration services will be classified in the restaurant industry. While this may seem to make sense at first glance, the reality is that […]