Rate Framework (Archived): FAQs

Your statements are available exclusively through our online services.

Read our online services FAQs for more information on how to access your online statements. 

Your rates are calculated by considering three components:

1. Insurable earnings
2. Number of claims
3. Claims costs

A rolling six-year period is used to calculate your premium rate. Specifically the six years prior to the rate-setting year.

For example, in in 2024, we used the years 2018-2023 to determine your 2025 premium rate. We review and take your insurable earnings, claims count and claims costs into consideration during that time.

Each class will have a set of risk bands and each risk band represents a rate in relation to the class rate. A rate is assigned to each risk band, either above or below the class rate. The difference between each risk band rate is approximately five per cent. Depending on your claims experience, your business will be assigned to a risk band that best represents your risk in relation to your class. Your assigned risk band rate includes rate adjustments based on your individual experience.

Your predictability is a measure of how much your past claims experience and insurable earnings can be used to predict future outcomes.

A low predictability means a business’ insurable earnings and the number of past claims is quite low. In this case, your claims experience would not have a significant impact on your rate. Instead, your premium rate will be more influenced by the rates of your class to protect against volatility and the dramatic effect one claim could have on your rate.

Businesses with a higher number of allowed claims, claims costs and larger insurable earnings, have a higher predictability. In this case, volatility is not as high, as each single claim likely will not have a significant impact on your rate.

The class rate represents the premium rate for a given class based on the collective risk profile for all the businesses within the class and your class’s shared responsibility to maintain the insurance fund.

We assign the class rate to new businesses. Your business is considered a new business if you have less than 11 months of experience available in the review period. Once a business has 11 months or more of experience in the review period, their following year’s premium rate will be set based on their past insurable earnings and claims experience.

Businesses with experience similar to the class are also assigned the class rate.

The better your company’s health and safety record, the less it costs the insurance system. For this reason, the WSIB supports financial incentive programs that reward businesses for good health and safety practices. Learn about our Health and Safety Excellence program.

You can also work with your peers to encourage industry-wide best practices for workplace health and safety, to lower the collective costs to the system by your class.

If you suspect that a business in your class is getting an unfair financial advantage by not registering with the WSIB, not reporting injuries or illnesses or not paying premiums, you can report fraud and abuse of the system.
 

Your projected premium rate provides the future direction, up or down, that your premium rate is headed if there is no change in your individual and class experience from year-to-year.

Starting January 1, 2025, we’ll introduce a new classification for the supply of administrative, clerical and knowledge-based labour.

Our new classification will be added to Class L, Professional, scientific, and technical, which has a similar risk profile to the business activities of supplying administrative, clerical and knowledge-based labour.

TEAs will report all their supplied administrative, clerical and knowledge-based labour under the new classification. They’ll continue to report all other types of labour they supply based on the classification of their client and report their internal office staff who aren’t supplied to clients under Class M, Temporary help services.

TEAs can complete the classification update request form by December 31, 2024, if they supply administrative, clerical and knowledge-based labour and need to add the new classification to their account effective January 1, 2025.

You can also learn more about our TEA rate setting consultation results.
 

Starting in 2025 through 2027, each year, non-profit organizations can move a maximum of three risk bands down from their prior year risk band (approximately 15 per cent)*, or a maximum of one risk band up from their prior year risk band (approximately five per cent).*

In 2028 and 2029, non-profit organizations can move a maximum of three risk bands down from their prior year risk band (approximately 15 per cent)*, or a maximum of two risk bands up from their prior year risk band (approximately 10 per cent).*

Starting in 2030, our policies for premium rate setting under our rate-setting model introduced in 2020 will be fully in effect for non-profit organizations. Non-profit organizations with projected premium rate increases or decreases will see their rates move up or down a maximum of three risk bands from their prior year risk band (approximately 15 per cent),* until they reach their projected premium rate.

*In rare circumstances risk band movement may result in a rate change lower or greater than the approximate percentage indicated. Please see the FAQs on risk bands and approximate yearly percentage increases.

For 2025, the prior year risk band is the risk band which contains the 2024 actual premium rate (referred to as “Your Rate” in the premium rate letter). Mine rescue charges, if applicable, are subtracted from the 2024 actual premium rate before determining the prior year risk band. Every prior year risk band has an assigned rate, called the prior year risk band rate, which is calculated annually to reflect changes in the class rate. The 2025 prior year risk band rate may be different from the 2024 actual premium rate.

Risk band movement may result in a rate change greater than 15 per cent depending on where a business’s rate falls in the prior year rate range. For example, your 2024 actual premium rate may have placed you in the lowest end of your risk band and changes in class/individual risk and/or experience have resulted in moving up to the next risk band resulting in a rate increase of more than 15 per cent in 2025. Alternatively, your prior year rate may have been so low that a one per cent increase represents an increase greater than 15 per cent.

Transition funding is a provision we created to cover the costs associated with transitioning businesses smoothly to our rate-setting model implemented in 2020. Transition funding doesn’t apply after 2023, and it will appear as zero on your extended rate statement in the years following.

You can request an extended statement that will provide you with details on how your individual premium rate was calculated, the adjustments made based on your claims experience and a breakdown of your claims costs.

To request an extended statement:

• Email employeraccounts@wsib.on.ca
• Call 1-800-387-0750
• Contact your Experience Rating Advisor if you were part of NEER or CAD-7

When determining your premium rate, we will assess three components: insurable earnings, number of claims, and claim costs. All allowed claims, both lost time and no-lost time injuries, will be used to calculate premium rates. Lost time claims typically have higher claims costs and may increase premium rates accordingly.

Your premium rate cannot be appealed, however, you can appeal any of the following components by providing supporting documentation that shows:

• Your insurable earnings are inaccurate 
• A claim(s) that occurred  should not have been applied to your account
• Your claims costs are incorrect 

If you have added, changed or deleted any business activities, or if you now meet the criteria for multiple premium rates, you may be eligible for a retroactive rate recalculation.

Adjustments can be made to your rate dating back to January 1 of the current year (or the year in which you notified us of the change).

You may be eligible for a rate recalculation if any of the following changes have been applied to your account retroactively. Adjustments can be made to your account dating back to January 1, up to three years prior to the current year.

Changes to account leading to debit or credit adjustments to your premium rate:

• interest charges are applied to your account
• a change in insurable earnings, including insurable earnings transfers from one business to another
• there is a change in your predominant class, including any predominant class changes resulting from a change in insurable earnings
• change in associated employer status
• non-compliance penalties
• status decisions for executive officers and contractors
• optional insurance
• claim count and/or claim costs due to a WSIB error
• earnings of non-registered businesses
• transfer of costs

Changes to account leading to debit adjustments to your premium rate:

• you previously provided incomplete or inaccurate information to the WSIB, or failed to act on information provided by the WSIB that directly affects your premium rate
• you declared your business to be exempt from compulsory coverage in construction under 'home renovation work' or claimed a 'partner or executive officer exemption' while performing construction work that is not eligible for the exemption

Changes to account leading to credit adjustments to your premium rate:

• Secondary Injury Enhancement Fund (SIEF) relief
• accident date changes
• claim amalgamation
• reversal of entitlement to a claim

For the WSIB’s audit area, the notification date for a rate adjustment is the date of the audit visit, or the due date indicated on the Notice of Audit.

For the WSIB’s other operating areas, the notification date for a rate adjustment is the receipt date of a request from a business, a business representative with valid authorization, or the date of a site visit documented in the business’s file.

In cases of court judgments and provisional premiums, debit or credit adjustments may be made in any prior year.

Debit adjustments may also be made in any prior year where non-compliance under the Workplace Safety and Insurance Act has been found (this includes claims reporting obligations and claims suppression).

Businesses who provide inaccurate or incomplete information and who have been identified as the result of the following may also have retroactive adjustments made to their account(s) in any prior year:

• the WSIB's information exchange agreements with the Canada Revenue Agency or other authorities or administrations
• Stakeholder Compliance Services referrals
• audit notifications and discoveries
• Action Line referrals (anonymous telephone calls)
• revenue recovery activities
• decisions resulting from worker status reviews, or any other means of identification

For additional details on retroactive adjustments, see Policy 14-02-06 Employer Premium Adjustments.