Insurance and Care (icare Workers Insurance, formerly WorkCover NSW) have announced that from early January 2017 icare will directly administer the policy and billing requirements under the NSW Workers Compensation Scheme.

There will be no change to claims management under the Scheme, or your current claims management contacts or services.

The changes to policy and billing will result in employers being able to purchase and renew their NSW Workers Compensation Insurance policies through the icare online self-service portal. Through the portal, all policy information to be consolidated in one place, providing transparency and accuracy. This will essentially see NSW operating similar to South Australia and QLD with policy and premium management being handled directly by the regulator.

We consider it an exciting development as this will allow for online declaration of wages and policy maintenance and a more consistent approach to premium management, where there has been notable differences in service delivery between the insurers historically.

A new icare Customer Support Centre will open as from 1St September 2016, supported by Service NSW to enable customers to speak directly to a customer-service representative about these changes.

At this stage we do not perceive any significant changes to the way your policy will operate in NSW and note that these changes will not impact the policy costs currently within the state.

Please do not hesitate to contact Adam Marshall within our office should you have any questions and we will provide more updates as they come to hand.