Ontario employers have one line item on their 2027 budgets that just got a little lighter. The Workplace Safety and Insurance Board announced this week that it is lowering its average premium rate from $1.23 to $1.18 per $100 of insurable earnings, effective January 1, 2027. The WSIB says more than 80 per cent of premium-paying businesses will see a reduction, and that the cut leaves $160 million in the province's economy. Individual rate statements will be available through WSIB online services starting in November.
A lower average is good news, but the word average is doing a lot of work in this announcement. Your actual rate depends on your industry classification and your own claims experience, and those two factors decide whether your bill drops, holds steady, or rises. Before you pencil in the savings, here is what changed, what to check when your statement arrives, and how to make the savings stick.
What actually changed
The headline numbers are straightforward. The average premium rate falls from $1.23 to $1.18 per $100 of insurable earnings on January 1, 2027. The WSIB says more than 80 per cent of businesses that pay premiums will get a reduction, and it points to improved return-to-work results and lower administrative costs as the reason the board can charge less. The provincial government is presenting the cut as part of its tariff-relief package for businesses, alongside tax relief and financing programs announced during Small Business Week.
For context, the average rate stood at $2.35 in 2018, so it has roughly halved in eight years, and Ontario's average now sits nearly 30 per cent below the national average, according to the WSIB. But what matters most to you is your individual rate, not the provincial average.
Why your rate may not follow the average
WSIB premiums are not one flat rate. Each employer sits in an industry class with its own class rate, and then the individual premium is adjusted for the employer's own claims history. That means the 5-cent average drop is the starting point, not the finish line.
Take construction as an example. For the non-residential building class (Class G6), the class rate moves from $1.61 to $1.58 per $100 of insurable earnings, and 92 per cent of businesses in that class will see their premium rate decrease or stay unchanged. Your class may show a similar move, a smaller one, or a different one entirely, and your own experience record then moves your number up or down from there. An employer with a heavy recent claims history can end up paying more even in a year the average falls, while an employer with a clean record often captures the full benefit. This is why the November rate statement matters more than the press release.
Three things to check on your November statement
When your individual 2027 rate statement arrives, treat it like any other insurance document: verify it before you file it.
First, check your classification. If your business has changed what it does since it was classified, make sure you are still in the right class. A business that has added new services, new divisions, or a different mix of work than it had when classified can end up rated for work it barely does. The right class is the foundation of the right rate.
Second, check your insurable earnings. Premiums are calculated on the payroll numbers you report, so accuracy here is money. Report what you actually paid, not a carry-forward estimate from last year. If your earnings were provisional, the WSIB recalculates once actual earnings are reported after April 30, 2027, so keep payroll records clean and current.
Third, reconcile your claims history. Your individual rate adjustment reflects the claims recorded against your account, and errors in that history can move your rate the wrong way. Compare the statement against your own incident records. If something does not match, ask questions before the rate year starts, not after you have been paying the wrong premium for six months.
Keep the savings by investing in safety
The most durable way to benefit from a falling rate trend is to earn the low end of it. Experience-adjusted premiums reward employers with fewer and less severe injuries, so every dollar you put into a safer workplace this year is also a bet on a lower premium statement next November.
The WSIB credits better return-to-work results for part of this cut, noting that nearly nine out of ten people who miss work because of an injury are now able to return within three months. That did not happen by accident. Training, maintained equipment, documented safety procedures, and a real plan for getting injured workers back to suitable duties are the practical pieces behind the statistic, and they are entirely within an employer's control.
There is also a cost side to injuries that no premium statement shows: lost production, overtime, and management time you never get back. Spending part of the premium savings on the safety program that keeps claims down is how you keep that money next year too.
Use the moment to review the rest of your insurance costs
WSIB coverage is arranged directly with the board, not placed through a broker, so this particular change needs no broker appointment. But the discipline behind it applies to everything else you insure. The same businesses that should be updating their payroll numbers for the WSIB are often carrying commercial property, liability, and auto policies whose values were set when the business looked different.
If your payroll, revenue, equipment, or operations have changed since your last renewal, that is information your broker needs. Updated numbers mean accurate values, and accurate values mean a claim that pays what you expect. Pair the November rate-statement check with a quick look at the rest of the program, and you start 2027 with every line item verified instead of just the one that made the news.
Related coverage: business insurance.