It was announced yesterday that CGU has made the decision to exit the NSW Worker’s Compensation Scheme. The exit will take place at the end of 2017, when their current contract expires. CGU’s exit will end a 30 year continuous involvement in the NSW Worker’s Comp Scheme.

icare’s New Role In The NSW Worker’s Comp Scheme

CGU’s decision to leave the scheme has shortly followed the introduction of new reforms involving Insurance & Care NSW (icare).

icare will take over several of the insurers role including:

• handling policy
• billing requirements from early next year

icare have also introduced several new initiatives including:

• a new broker channel
• a self-service portal
• a customer support centre.

So what does this mean for insurers? IAG CEO Australian Business Division Ben Bessell says changes to the design and distribution of the new model make it commercially unviable to continue as an agent. 

Moving Forward

Despite changes being rolled out in NSW, each state and territory workers compensation scheme is different. CGU has stated they will maintain their workers compensation presence in other states across Australia.

 “We will continue to provide workers’ compensation insurance products to more than 100,000 businesses around Australia,” Bessell said.

icare will begin moving forward with employer policies and workers’ claims transitions in July 2017, taking on responsibility for the processing of workers compensation policies, premiums and renewals.

icare Group Executive Workers Insurance, John Nagle, said the new offering will improve the customer experience by making it easier and faster for new businesses to arrange their workers’ insurance anywhere, any time.

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