DCBS approves exclusion of COVID-19 claims from rating programs
A new unit allows insurance carriers to separately identify COVID-19 claims.
In August 2020, DCBS approved a National Council on Compensation Insurance filing that created an exception to exclude COVID-19 claims with an accident date on or after December 1, 2019, from experience rating and Assigned Risk Plan merit rating calculations. A new unit - the statistical catastrophe code (Code 12) - allows insurance carriers to separately identify COVID-19 claims in their reported loss data.
The earliest rating effective date that could be impacted by this change is August 16, 2020, and there is currently no proposed end date for this exception. SAIF also filed to exclude COVID-19 claims from SAIF's claim rating program to mirror the changes to the experience rating and merit rating calculations.
These exclusions only apply to the calculation of the experience rating, claim rating, and merit rating. Future exposure to COVID-19 claims may be considered in underwriting decisions, and actual COVID-19 claims will be included in calculating premium adjustments for retrospectively rated policies.