Best practice workers' compensation insurance performance: The related issues

Legislation and / or standard conditions of contract require contractors and related stakeholders to obtain workers' compensation (WC) insurance, which is included in the cost of construction, product or service as a labour overhead. However, based upon the amount of claims relative to assessments, contractors and related stakeholders can either incur a loading, or receive a rebate on their premiums. Given that the receipt of rebate awards is a manifestation of 'best practice', the recipients of such awards constitute an ideal sample frame to investigate H&S performance related issues. A study was conducted among a mutual WC insurer’s rebate award recipients for a recent year, to investigate among other: the importance of traditional and non – traditional project parameters; the contribution by various aspects / interventions / stakeholders to the receipt of rebate awards, and their potential contribution to an improvement in H&S performance, and the manifestation of enhanced H&S performance. Notable and significant findings include: cost, productivity, quality and schedule are more important than H&S safe work procedures (SWPs), awareness, management commitment, first line supervision, legislation and worker participation predominate among the contribution by forty-five aspects / interventions / stakeholders to the receipt of rebate awards, and non – H&S benefits are more prevalent than H&S benefits in terms of the manifestation of improvement in H&S performance.