Queensland’s state-run workers’ compensation scheme is teetering on the brink of financial ruin, forcing Parliament to consider raising premiums to stabilise its balance sheet.

Following consecutive annual deficits totalling more than $800,000 – including investment losses of $265,540 in 2008/09 – the State Government will consider raising its premiums, which are currently the lowest in the country.

The Government will decide in a month how to salvage the scheme, which covers 156,000 employees.

Last November WorkCover called on the Government to deliver reforms or face the prospect of the scheme failing.

Claims from 2008 have risen by more than $400,000 to $1.59 billion as a result of “strengthening in the liability for common law benefits” and the poor state of the global economy.

This “strengthening” was seen recently in a record six-figure payout to the family of a man who died from skin cancer, attributed to over-exposure to sunshine at work.