Oregon’s Department of Consumer and Business Services released the summary of a study they did of all fifty states and Washington D.C., the full study will be released this year. According to their results California and New Jersey have the most expensive workers’ compensation premium rates. Oregon was on the other end of the spectrum, found to have the 7^th least expensive rates. North Dakota had the lowest rates overall. Oregon does this study on every even year, they started in 1986 when Oregon had some of the most expensive rates in the country.

The department ranked all the states by comparing their rates as of January 1^st this year. They were weighed against the national median rate, which is $1.84 per $100 of payroll. They used classification codes from the National Council on Compensation Insurance. They also accounted for different businesses and industries in every state by calculating rates based off of the 50 most expensive industries for workers’ compensation claims in Oregon. When asked for a comment the director of California’s Department of Industrial Relations, Christine Baker, said the state’s costs were not reported entirely accurately because they were generated based off the industries in Oregon and not California. Researchers listed the top 10 payroll classifications they used for the study which can be found in the summary.

North Dakota’s rates were $0.89 per $100 of payroll while California’s was $3.24 per $100 of payroll.

California did pass significant changes to the workers’ compensation system, specifically to try and remove fraud and excessive liens from the system, and they seem to be working. California’s Workers’ Compensation Rating Bureau submitted a pure premium rate filing of $2.22 per $100 of payroll that they proposed for January 2017.

Find out more about the study here, and check out a map of premium rate rankings.