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Message from our acting chairperson
“With new leadership and well-informed recommendations to guide us, it’s time to take what we’ve learned, recommit to the fundamentals, and dedicate 2019 to delivering increased value for you, our stakeholders. We look forward to the year ahead.”
- Haley Flaro
Message from our president & CEO
“We understand that we must transform our organization to ensure we can better meet the needs of New Brunswickers today and into the future – one that offers optimal care for injured workers to help them recover and return to work as soon as safely possible and that meets the health and safety needs of employers, both small and large.”
- Douglas Jones
External Reviews
Three external reviews of WorkSafeNB were undertaken in 2018, and the recommendations stemming from them will support our transformation.
Our ultimate priority is keeping New Brunswick workers safe at work so they can return home safely every day. We do this through: awareness building; facilitating education of the Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) Act; identifying gaps in health and safety procedures; and, referring employers to support services, all the while demonstrating and fostering safety leadership behaviours. We also focus on ensuring compliance through workplace inspections and partnering with workplaces to find solutions when health and safety hazards and risks are identified.
Learn about how we partnered with Maritime Door and Window to help them create a safe work culture that is paying off.
The typical lost-time claim is no longer the traditional injury from the past, such as a broken bone or fracture. It is most likely a soft-tissue injury, caused by lifting or perhaps even moving another person in the process of caring for them. And it’s also increasingly likely to not be purely physical – more and more often, there are other factors related to mental health that need to be considered.
Safety Days are hosted in collaboration with employer and community partners throughout the province. The events provide health and safety education sessions that are hands-on, fun and interactive for Grades 4 to 6 students and help build safety leaders for today and the future.
While our goal is to prevent workplace injuries from occurring, when they do occur it is our job to help that worker recover from their injury, and assist in a safe return to work as early as possible. Effective return-to- work (RTW) practices and appropriate and timely medical care are fundamental to getting workers back to the job safely after an illness or injury.
Find out how we worked with Ernestine, from the International Brotherhood of Boilermakers Lodge 73, to help her recover and get back to work.
We have seen a continual increase in closed claim duration since 2015. In 2018, our closed claims averaged 112 days. We need the full commitment from all parties (workers, employers, medical professionals and WorkSafeNB) to reverse this trend and move New Brunswick to among the best in class in return to work outcomes.
We have compiled a number of recovery statistics and compared them to other Canadian jurisdictions to see how we stack up.
Finding the Best Medical Aid
We are always seeking out the best medical aid to facilitate recovery for our clients. In 2018, we revised our opioids policy to align with the newest best practices and with the safety of our clients in mind. We were also the first Canadian workers’ compensation board to implement a medical cannabis policy.
Listen to an interview with our Chief Medical Officer, Dr. Paul Atkinson on our revised opioid policy.
We are dedicated to building a strong, stable, and sustainable workers’ compensation system that serves New Brunswick’s workers and employers today and in the years to come. While New Brunswick has been among the safest of all provinces in terms of injury frequency for many years, the cost to provide benefits to injured workers has risen rapidly in recent years to become the highest of all provinces.
In 2018, we spent, on average, $1 million per month in hearing-loss claims alone. By the end of the year, hearing-loss claims represented $424 million in liabilities.
Hearing-loss claims are only one of many cost drivers impacting our system.
Ever-escalating costs including hearing-loss claims, combined with a negative 1% investment return in 2018, resulted in the need for a 72% increase in assessment rates for 2019 to $2.92 per $100 of payroll – the highest rate of any province.
In addition to cost drivers, investment returns and funding level also impact the workers’ compensation system.
We are building the WorkSafeNB of the future through transformation. We need to do so to meet the ever-changing needs of our clients. Like many organizations, WorkSafeNB is faced with the complexities associated with keeping pace with the employer. In 2018, we initiated significant and necessary investments to transform our systems, processes and organization, to build a workplace that delivers service with a view to meeting or exceeding our clients’ expectations.
Client satisfaction results have been relatively stable in the recent three years in which they were collected. However, employer satisfaction has declined since 2014, which is not unexpected given the extra challenge that increasing premium rates have placed on New Brunswick employers recently.
We’re always striving to provide the best client service we can.
With offices in Saint John, Grand Bay-Westfield, Fredericton, Dieppe, Bathurst and Grand Falls, our employees help workers injured on the job safely recover. We help employers make workplaces safe. And we strive to provide our clients – whether they are workers or employers – exceptional service.
WorkSafeNB recorded a deficit of $271.5 million in 2018. This compares with a deficit of $134.3 million in 2017. The deficit is the result of higher than expected claims costs and lower than expected investment returns. Costs reflect the latest trends, valuation assumptions and method changes, and benefit entitlements from continuing implementation of policy changes following 2015 legislative changes.
