ReturnToWorkSA, formerly WorkCover SA, has cut its average premium rate to a record low of 1.95% of wages.

State Industrial Relations Minister John Rau says the scheme is now fully funded.

SA had held its rate at 2.75% for the past four years, making its workers’ compensation scheme by far the most expensive in the country.

The new rate takes effect along with major reforms on July 1.

Mr Rau says the unfunded liability has improved from $1.132 billion last June to a $20 million surplus last December.

ReturnToWorkSA Chairman Jane Yuile says legislative reform and active scheme management have enabled the turnaround.

Improved management by ReturnToWorkSA and scheme agents Employers Mutual and Gallagher Bassett Services has already delivered a $508 million release from the claims liability, she says.

“A key feature of the new scheme is early intervention and face-to-face services, strategies we’ve already started to implement with remarkable results.”

Employers Mutual WorkCover SA GM Declan Collins told insuranceNEWS.com.au he can see the scheme becoming a model for others.

More investment has gone into claims management but it will pay off by lowering costs.

Agents are expected to spend more time meeting clients. Mr Collins says a pilot with small and medium employers was expanded to larger ones this year and will be rolled out in full at the end of this month.

“Even the pilot saw a 10% increase in return to work rates,” he said. “It is amazing how going out face to face with clients enables you to deal with issues there and then rather than with the traditional office, desk-based approach of waiting for things to come in the mail and sending out letters.”

Agents can make decisions immediately to support employers and help people get back to work faster, and Mr Collins says the personal contact is reducing disputes.

Ms Yuile says by July claims agents will have more than 100 mobile case managers providing face-to-face service and managers who live and work in regional centres, rather than fly-in-fly-out operations.