Insurance Commissioner Karen Weldin Stewart approved the Delaware Compensation Rating Bureau (DCRB)’s workers’ compensation amended rate filing, resulting in an overall average increase of 7.09 percent in residual market rates and 7.20 percent in voluntary market loss costs.
The DCRB originally proposed overall increases of 14.92 percent for the residual market plan and 15.03 percent for the voluntary market loss costs. The commissioner’s independent actuaries and the state’s Ratepayer Advocate each examined DCRB’s filing and recommended increases lower than the ones requested by DCRB. Following discussions, the three parties proposed the amended rates which the commissioner approved.
By contrast, the position of the members of the Workers Compensation Oversight Panel, chaired by Delaware State Chamber of Commerce President Richard Heffron, was that rates should be in the range proposed by the panel’s independent actuary, which recommended a 2-3 percent increase.
