The Workplace Safety and Insurance Board (WSIB) has responded to a series of measures proposed by government-appointed reviewers to help the board maintain financial stability, manage its transition to the new rate framework model, and implement its service modernization initiative.

The report, which was made public on November 6, was prepared as an operational review by Linda Regner Dykeman and Sean Speer. In it, the reviewers applaud WSIB for eliminating its unfunded liability, launching its new rate framework, and implementing its service modernization initiative. They caution, however, that the cumulative affects of these major changes could lead to challenges.

“Successful execution of these transitions will… require strong leadership, proper mitigation strategies and an overall legal and policy framework that supports the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board's efforts,” they wrote in the report.

They add that the “top priority for the WSIB must be to modernize” in order to replace “paper processing, telephone interactions, and faxing with easy to use online services.”

To those ends, the reviewers made 25 recommendations aimed at supporting the transformation currently underway at the WSIB, and to strengthen the overall health and safety system in Ontario. Some of them include:

• adopting regulation that prescribes a sufficiency ratio corridor of between 115 percent and 125 percent for the WSIB for the five-year period between 2020 and 2025,
• developing a predictive modelling capacity within WSIB to improve its pricing and rate-setting processes,
• creating an industry class manager position with whom employers, industry associations and unions can engage about their issues and circumstances,
• modernizing the claims process by expanding the digital submission of documents and enabling individuals to register online in order to monitor the status of their files,
• moving to a self-service model for no-lost-time claims in particular and simple claims in general,
• setting separate targets for processing timelines for no-lost-time claims and lost-time claims,
• consolidating the many appeal layers into a single function within the WSIB before appeals can move to the Workplace Safety and Insurance Appeals Tribunal,
• working with the Office of the Chief Prevention Officer and the Ministry of Labour, Training and Skills Development to coordinate better data collection and analysis, and
• preparing a list of required competencies to ease the process of choosing members for the WSIB board of directors, and staggering board members’ terms.

The WSIB, for its part, said it welcomes the recommendations.

“This report says we are heading in the right direction with important changes to modernize that will lead to better service for people who need us most,” said WSIB chair Elizabeth Witmer.

President Tom Teahen added that the board has already taken steps to implement some of those recommendations—including adding new online services so people can track their claim status, payment, health care and medication coverage.