How much does wcb cost in bc

Reporting payroll and making remittances to WorkSafeBC may be done on a quarterly or annual basis depending on the amount of your premiums.

Both quarterly and annual remitters make payments for the past quarter or year respectively. Penalties for non-reporting of payroll and non-remitting of payments will be imposed. It is therefore important to report your payroll as required — even if your payroll is zero. A WorkSafeBC audit generally involves an examination of your accounting and related records to ensure you are meeting the reporting and remitting requirements under the Workers Compensation Act.

The frequency, scope and years examined by an audit officer will vary from employer to employer and to some degree are dependent on the nature of the operation and the type of labour or contractors engaged. The records subject to an audit are not limited to payroll journals, but will encompass all books, documents, records, papers and other items which relate to assessable earnings.

The conclusions of the audit will be communicated to you in a decision letter. In most cases a copy of the audit working papers will also be included with the decision letter.

If you disagree with the decision, you may see a review of it. See Disputing an Audit of Your Business. The information in this section applies to both contractors and subcontractors. If the contractor is registered, you will want to request a clearance letter from WorkSafeBC that sets out whether the registration is in good standing see Clearance Letters.

Because clearance letters provide information up to a particular date and do not ensure the contractor will make assessment payments in the future, you may wish to consider holding back a percentage of the value of the labour portion of the contract pending confirmation, by way of another clearance letter, that assessments were paid.

If the contractor is registered and regularly employs workers, your responsibilities will include maintaining the work premises in a manner that ensures worker health and safety and advising the contractor of any known hazards at the workplace. Your responsibilities may also include ensuring activities at the workplace relating to health and safety are coordinated and doing everything reasonably practicable to have a system in place to ensure compliance with the Workers Compensation Act and Occupational Health and Safety Regulation.

Responsibilities owed to contractors are very complex and involve multiple sections of the Workers Compensation Act and various WorkSafeBC policies. Clearance Letters. If the contractor or subcontractor you hire is not registered or is not making its payments to WorkSafeBC, you could be liable for insurance premiums owing in connection with the work or service being performed on your behalf. This letter will confirm registration and whether the subcontractor in in good standing.

Clearance letters are available from WorkSafeBC by telephone or toll free , fax or online at www. It is recommended that quarterly updates of clearance letters be obtained to ensure the contractor is keeping up-to-date with payments to WorkSafeBC. You may wish to subscribe to "Clearance Alert", an online service which automatically provides notification of any changes to a contractor's status with WorkSafeBC. Clearance Alert allows you to submit a list of contractors over a secured online server.

You can add or remove names from the list as desired. WorkSafeBC monitors the clearance status of the contractors on your list and notifies you by e-mail of any changes to clearance rating. For example, a contractor that has reported its payroll and paid its premiums to April 1 may receive GoldStar Clearance to July 1 of that year.

When you register with the WCB, your business is assigned to an industry classification based on the overall kind of work you do. It is not affected by the legal structure s of your operations or the various occupations within your operation.

An industry classification is made up of a group of employers who operate in a similar industry with a similar level of risk. Each industry classification is assigned a risk category that describes their level of risk cost of injuries compared to the system average. Each year, we monitor industry classification experience rates to ensure that employers are placed in the proper risk category.

There are eighteen risk categories. As your industry's experience evolves, it may move a risk category to shift towards the experience reflected by costs and experience of the industry classification. Employers will receive a notification in their annual rate notification for possible movement. Classifications and their risk categories are based on four years of historical data that tell us how likely employers are — in comparison to the average of all employers — to have claims and claims-related costs.

Risk categories are expressed as a percentage of that likelihood in relation to the base rate. For example, an industry classification that has injury costs that are only 25 per cent of the average of all employers is put into the 25 per cent risk category. A classification in the per cent risk category is expected to have twice the claims costs as the average of all employers. When an employer registers with the WCB, they are assigned the classification base rate of their risk category.

Over time, their rate will be adjusted up or down within an established range of rates for that risk category depending on their actual claims costs. Within each classification, employers pay more or less than the classification base rate based on their past claims costs. The range — how much more or less than the classification base rate it is possible to pay — is based on employer size. Small and medium employers have a narrower rate range than large employers.

Small and medium employers tend to have bigger changes in claims costs from year to year than larger employers for instance, a small or medium employer could have several years claims-free followed by a year with a single high-cost claim with costs that last for several years. A narrower rate range protects small and medium employers against sharp changes in their rate caused by sharp changes in their claims costs.

An employers' claims cost experience carries different weight based on their size. A large employer's individual costs experience has a greater impact on the premiums they pay, but for medium employers, the industry experience has a greater impact on what you pay. This helps protect medium employers against volatile changes in their rate caused by sharp changes in their claims costs.

An employers' experience carries different weight based on their size. A large employer's individual costs have a greater impact on the premiums they pay, whereas for small and medium employers, the industry classification they are in has a greater impact on what they pay.

Generally, an employer who invests in safety and prevention and makes every effort to return injured workers back to health and safe and suitable work will have lower claim costs and pay a lower rate. View the listing of Classifications and their Risk Categories.

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