Brokers have a formal seat in deciding how New South Wales workers compensation premiums are calculated from 2028, after the state government opened consultation on the first comprehensive review of icare's nominal insurer premium model in more than a decade.
The review, announced today by the Minister for Industrial Relations and Work Health and Safety Sophie Cotsis (pictured left) and Minister for Small Business Janelle Saffin (pictured right), applies to the pricing model covering 340,000 employers. Insurance and Care NSW (icare) operates the nominal insurer, which accounts for roughly 65% of active claims in the state scheme. Submissions close on 25 October via the NSW Government's Have Your Say platform, with employers, industry groups, brokers and advisers all named as invited stakeholders.
The review runs on almost exactly the same clock as the premium freeze currently holding the scheme together. The Minns government has said that without the freeze, employers faced average premium increases of 36% over three years. A legislated freeze locks the nominal insurer's insurance premium target collection rate at the 1.99% figure filed with the State Insurance Regulatory Authority (SIRA) for 2025-26, across the 2026-27 and 2027-28 premium years. The government has put phases one and two of the review - consultation, then modelling, testing and validation - at approximately 18 months.
In other words, the model that determines what employers pay when the freeze lifts is being designed now, during the freeze. Brokers writing NSW workers compensation books have a two-year window in which base rates are stable and the successor model is still open to influence.
The freeze does not cap what any individual client pays. icare has been explicit that final premiums can still move on declared wages, changes in business activity or industry classification, and claims experience. That distinction has been a recurring source of client confusion since the freeze took effect, and it remains the single most important thing to get right in renewal conversations.
Cotsis said the review would examine how incentives are built into pricing. "The review will also consider the use of incentives in how icare determine premiums, including potential incentives for hiring apprentices and implementing safety training," she said.
The stated objectives include assessing whether the current model remains fit for purpose, balancing premium responsiveness against stability, improving transparency and predictability of outcomes, sharpening incentives for injury prevention and return to work, and supporting long-term scheme sustainability.
The government framed the review as a response to small business, family-run business and not-for-profit disability and social services providers raised through ministerial roundtables and icare business community forums.
National Disability Services state manager Lowri Williams said 73% of NSW disability providers are operating at a deficit or only breaking even and that providers report average NSW premiums at 4.4% of wages - more than 2.5 percentage points above the allowance built into NDIS pricing.
NSW Council of Social Service chief executive Cara Varian said the current model assumes employers can absorb or recover increases, which most community organisations cannot do while delivering services under fixed-price government contracts. She said nine in ten organisations report costs rising faster than funding.
Both are segments where brokers are frequently the only party translating premium movement into operational consequence.
The review is the latest step in a sequence brokers have been tracking through the proclamation rolling out the next phase of workers compensation reforms, consultation on the draft workers compensation overhaul package and the dual guideline update that reset NSW workers compensation from June 2026.
This one is different in scope. The earlier instruments implemented reforms already legislated. This review reopens the calculation method itself.
