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01/14/2017

Bureau of Worker's Compensation partnering with ACEC Ohio

Member firms meet to discuss EM Ratings

BWC Letter

Recently, four ACEC Ohio member firms sat down with the Ohio Bureau of Worker’s Compensation Administrator, Sarah Morrison, and her staff to discuss the use of EM ratings by third party vendors. This has been an issue with many of our member firms and there is a wide variety of situations that influence the rating, an EM rating over 1.0 impacts a firm’s ability to get work.

The BWC agreed that the EM calculation does not reflect how safe or unsafe a company may be but is a calculation used to determine employer rates/premiums.  To assist our member firms, the Administrator agreed to write a letter to ACEC Ohio that can be shared with potential clients stating BWC uses the EM rating for premium determination not safety practices of a company.  This letter is for ACEC Ohio members use only, to receive a copy of the letter, please email Beth Easterday, beth.easterday@acecohio.org.

While the Bureau of Worker’s Compensation assisted our member firms by writing this letter, ACEC Ohio is also pursuing the addition of a new NCCI (National Council on Compensation Insurance) code, these codes are not Ohio specific and are used to categorize work.  The codes currently do not reflect the industry trend of consulting firms doing work in the field such as inspection and construction management. The NCCI codes are reviewed every three years.

The BWC has offered to assist our members, for free, with safety audits, safety training programs or other safety needs. To get more information on BWC training programs: www.bwc.ohio.gov/catalog

In addition, the BWC safety congress is coming up March 8-10, 2017: www.ohiosafetycongress.com

and the Bureau has just created a new blog on safety:

https://ohiobwcblog.wordpress.com/category/safety/

 

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