Grouping insurance for related businesses

Download Exclusion from Grouping Request Form

Grouping your insurance should be done either when you register for your policy or as soon as you become aware that you have related businesses. Penalties may apply if you don’t.

What are related businesses?

Related businesses are those that have common ownership or control. This includes a controlling interest of more than 50% in each of two businesses, or an accumulated interest via tracing of interests in corporations. Related businesses are also those sharing employees between the businesses.

If you're adding a new member to your insurance group and don't have your workers' compensation insurance group number, contact us at 13 44 22. If you know your group number, you can get a new policy online.

How this affects your premium

Your premium may be affected by the combined average performance premium (APP) of the grouped businesses.

The group APP will determine your employer category (average performance premium range) and claims performance adjustment rate. If the group APP exceeds $30,000 all employers within the group will be claims experience adjusted.

If you have low or no claims costs and outperform the NSW workers compensation insurance scheme, being grouped based on the employer size category can lead to a lower premium.

You can calculate the cost of your premium using our online tool.

Other group members' claims don't impact your premiums, except in the following circumstances:

• where a member with claims stops trading, and its policy is cancelled, the cancelled policy's claims history may be applied to other group members through Group Apportionment.
• if a group member with claims history transfers the bulk of its workforce to one or more members of the same group and continues to hold a policy with a reduced premium and claims experience impact, the policy's claims history will be applied proportionally to the successor group members through Predecessor Proportional Allocation.

You must register for grouping within 14 days of realising you're part of a group,

Download Grouping Registration Form

Keeping your separate policies

All group members must have separate policies, but they must share a common renewal date. It is a legislative requirement.

The common renewal date should align with the first policy's renewal date after the employers became related for grouping. This may require short-term adjustments for some policies. Employers can contact icare for details on how short-term policies will impact them.

If the initial renewal date is inconvenient for the group, all members can coordinate with icare to short-term their policies to a preferred common renewal date. Additionally, grouped employers must use a common Claims Service Provider.

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Employers not required to group

Grouping does not apply to employers who are:

• self-insurers
• insured with specialised insurers
• government departments
• related to other employers where their combined annual wages payable to workers do not exceed $750,000
• insured where the policy of insurance relates only to private household domestic workers.

How to register as a group

Complete the grouping registration form and send it to us by email or post.

Each member of your group must also complete a Grouping registration form.

We will write to you and provide your group number and details of other registered employers in your group.

Email: premium.services@icare.nsw.gov.au

Post: Premium Services, icare workers insurance, Locked Bag 2906, Lisarow, NSW 2250.

Apply for exclusion from grouping

You can only apply to be excluded once you have registered for grouping.

Employers can apply to us to be excluded from grouping when:

1. The employer is a member of a group which uses common employees,
2. The employer carries on a business as a trustee of a trust and is a member of a group of commonly controlled businesses,
3. The employer is a non-profit organisation conducting a business with a charitable, benevolent, philanthropic or patriotic purpose and that business is not in direct competition with any other business conducted for profit.

If an exempt employer is a related entity they are required under the Workers Compensation Act 1987 to maintain a policy and be grouped.

An application for Exclusion from Grouping Request Form can be downloaded below or obtained by contacting icare workers compensation insurance on 13 44 22.

icare will determine within 30 days whether a not-for-profit employer can be excluded from a group.