How is My Rate Set?

Workers compensation insurance premiums are a blend of collective and individual liability. This means your premium is based on a combination of the risk of potential injury costs at your workplace and the risk at workplaces with similar business activities. We group similar businesses together – this is your industry classification. 

There are approximately 175 industry classifications in Manitoba. When you register with the WCB, your business is assigned to an industry classification based on the kind of work you do. Each industry classification is assigned a risk category that describes their cost of injuries compared to the system average. The average rate is what you would pay if every employer paid the same WCB rate. The average rate is a baseline – we use it to set rates for each classification group.

Find out more about your industry classification.

When the total cost of injuries for all covered employers in Manitoba decreases, the average rate goes down and this decreases the baseline rate for all employers. If the average rate goes up, the baseline rate for all employers increases.

Employers’ rates revolve around base rates. For new businesses, rates are fixed to the classification base rate for three calendar years.  After three years, a business’s rate will decrease or increase based on their claims cost experience.

For 2024, the WCB will continue to maintain one of the lowest average rates in Canada at $0.95.

Grouping similar employers together helps us promote and enhance workplace safety and health – everyone benefits when costs go down – while spreading out the costs of the workers compensation system equitably among all businesses.

View the classification base rates for all industry classifications.

Your rate is set by measuring three full years of your costs from three full calendar years of claims that you have filed with the WCB compared to the average.

Generally, an employer who invests in safety and prevention and makes every effort to return injured workers back to health and meaningful work will have lower claim costs and pay a lower rate.

If you would like to know which claims costs will affect your rate, please refer to your Claim Transaction Statement.

Employers are grouped according to their average payroll for rate setting.

• Small employers - payroll of less than $750,000
• Medium employers - payroll of more than $750,000 and less than $7.5 million
• Large employers - payroll of $7.5 million or more 

Your business size affects your rate in two ways:

• the range of rates you can pay above or below your industry classification’s base rate
• how your business’s claims costs and your industry’s claims costs are blended to calculate your rate.

Rates for small employers use a smaller rate range and greater percentage of the industry’s claim costs. This helps protect small employers against volatile changes in their rate caused by sharp changes in their claims costs.

An employers' claims cost experience carries different weight based on their size. A large employer's individual costs experience has a greater impact on the premiums they pay, but for smaller employers, the industry experience has a greater impact on what you pay.

Your WCB rates are set based on a system we call the rate model. The rate model is how we make sure every employer pays their fair share of costs. Employers share the cost of the workers compensation system, while also paying higher or lower rates based on their own claims experience and the experience of the industry classification they share with other employers.