Friday, May 21, 2004
YOUNGSTOWN -- Private employers across Ohio will get a one-time, 20-percent dividend on their workers' compensation coverage for the second half of this year, but employer premiums will increase an average of 2 percent.
Ohio's Workers' Compensation Oversight Commission voted Thursday to grant the dividend in the form of a credit on bills to be mailed in July.
The Ohio Bureau of Workers' Compensation recommended the payback, based on investment returns averaging 15.7 percent in 2003 and outpacing benchmarks so far in 2004, generating a "sizable surplus" to fund the dividend.
A bureau press release said the state's workers' compensation program remains fully funded. The dividend means a savings of more than $170 million for private employers.
The oversight commission will decide in November whether to grant another dividend in the January billing, which also would affect public employers. Public employers are billed once a year, and private employers are billed twice a year.
The commission also agreed to the 2 percent increase in private employer premiums, at the recommendation of the BWC.
With one exception, BWC spokesman Jeremy Jackson said, the state agency has been awarding dividends ranging from 20 percent to 75 percent of employers' premium payments since 1996.
Just once, in May 2003, the BWC did not pay a dividend because its investments had not performed well and its surplus funds had dwindled.