@Work prepares for quote deluge

By Richard Braddell

Only 10 per cent of the country's 235,000 employers have taken out accident insurance ahead of the privatised workers' compensation market which comes into effect on July 1.

Employers must have insurance by June 25 with one of the six private companies competing in the new market or they will be compulsorily signed up with the new Crown company, @Work Insurance.

However, @Work's spokesman, Mark Thomas, said the kind of numbers being talked of in the insurance industry, combined with @Work's own experience, indicated that only 10 per cent of employers had so far taken out policies while only 35 per cent had sought quotes.

While insurance brokers and insurers say they have been working through the night to meet statutory deadlines, some admit that deadlines will be missed because of the volume of work involved.

While @Work was in line for a deluge of business, Mr Thomas was confident its systems had been designed to keep up, even though the company was charged with contacting all employers who had not taken insurance in the week beginning June 28.

Employers have five working days from July 7 to tell staff who their new insurer is and 10 working days to respond to send back a form to @Work, confirming their arrangements.

But while the bulk of the 400 largest employers are expected to have workers' compensation policies in place this week, smaller employers may not be so efficient.

The chief executive of the Wellington Regional Chamber of Commerce, Claire Johnstone, believes that many smaller employers may have found the transition to the private workers' compensation market too hard.

"I just wonder if they are going to be consigned to @Work, is this a public indication that they didn't want to make the choice," Ms Johnstone said.

But if there is doubt whether small employers will be better off under the new scheme, large employers have been reporting much more favourable rates which may have been helped by some of the private insurers engaging in "loss-leading" in order to corner market share.