News and Updates
Category: Group Retro Refunds
Disappointed with Your 2020 Group Retro Refund?
You’re not alone. Now that BWC is releasing the first Group Retro checks (and a few assessments) for the 2020 policy year, many Ohio employers are underwhelmed by the results. In the earlier days of Group Retro, it wasn’t unheard of to see refunds over 50%. Spooner certainly had its heyday in the program, with some of our industry groups reaching close to the maximum return of 63%. In the last ten years, we’ve seen several factors begin to chip away at these big returns: increased loss development factors, fewer premium dollars in pools due to Premium Size Factor Reductions, and more recently – the move to a new reserve calculating system called ACES. The first two changes caused average returns to dip into the 40% ranges, but huge reserves from ACES delivered a sucker punch that left only five of the best performing groups with returns over 40%. Five of the hardest-hit pools will receive an assessment, which means paying back anywhere between 15-25% of their 2020 premiums to BWC. All other groups in the middle of the best and worst averaged returns of less than 24%. For some, that’s less than half of their historical performance average. We’ve been tracking the impact of ACES on Group Retro for a while now, and several TPAs (including Spooner) have voiced their concerns to BWC regarding the dwindling returns. While the complaints were taken under advisement, BWC chose to make such minor changes to the reserve calculations t
