Word on the street is that California employers should start expecting higher workers’ compensation rates.
California employers have enjoyed a soft workers’ comp market for the last decade, but all indications are now pointing to the market hardening, entering a period of rates needing to go up to offset undesired financial results from carriers often in terms of increased expenses, medical inflation, deteriorating results and other factors.
The Workers Compensation Insurance Rating Bureau of California analyzes state-wide results for the workers’ comp system and provides meaningful loss analysis for the benefit of many stakeholders including carriers offering workers’ comp policies in the state. For many years the WCIRB has been recommending rate decreases as overall system results justified lower rates.
Rising costs in the system prompted the WCIRB to propose an 11.2% advisory pure premium rate increase for September 1, 2025. California Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara in July approved an average 8.7% increase in advisory pure premium rates. This reflects new emerging cost incr…