What Do WCIO, NY, NV, and CA Have In Common?
Yes, the WCIOs in NY, NV, and CA all do have something in common. Each caught me by surprise, in a good way.
As promised in my last article, I found four anomalies of sorts from the 2026 NCCI AIS. The unusual developments expounded upon at the conference were in two areas:
- New things learned – WCIO – what groups comprise the organization?
- Unusual State Developments – namely NV, CA, and NY.
Let us cover the WCIO NY, NV, and CA info from least to most shocking. The final NCCI AIS session – Every State Has a Story provided the state-specific info, namely New York and California.
Donna Glenn’s session covered the Nevada info.
WCIO – What is it? What Does it Do?
I have seen the acronym on certain Workers Comp insurance forms and rules, among other places. I found out at the second day of the NCCI AIS presentations that it is an organization born out of cooperation amongst all the rating bureaus.
According to the WCIO main webpage,
The WCIO is a voluntary, not-for-profit association of workers compensation Data Collection Organizations (DCOs). The WCIO provides shared data specifications for reporting workers’ compensation data to DCOs and promoting best practices. Additional specifications are also available for WCIO standard data products offered by some DCOs to insurers and their authorized representatives.
California
California, as expected, increased its lost costs by 12% effective September 1, 2026. This increase was likely due to the spike in litigated cumulative trauma (CT) claims, many post-terminations. The increase in these CT claims totaled 30%. That amount of an increase is a stark figure.
New York
The NYCIRB – the Workers Comp Rating Bureau for New York will lower loss costs across the board 20% due to several factors, such as AI and increased automation. A 20% decrease reflects an aggressive Workers’ Comp cost-reduction move.
Nevada
In NV, the loss rate increase is best shown on a chart from Donna Glenn’s State of the Line
NV is increasing its loss costs by 22% in 2026. That represents a major difference from most of the states. Do not forget that each insurance carrier can deviate from the recommended class code rates by filing a Loss Cost Multiplier (LCM). As recommended earlier, check out Donna Blenn’s presentation at the link earlier in this article for an explanation of why NV decided to initiate such a large increase – hint – the tourism industry.
Nevada also increased the chargeable maximum employee payroll to $98K from $38K. That seems to be quite a jump.
WCIO NY, NV, and CA Had This in Common
WCIO NY, NV, and CA all contained developments that I did not know, and I follow the state changes closely. My conclusions are to at least look over the developments published by NCCI and the other rating bureaus at least quarterly. Most of the info is free of charge.
