Last year’s legislative reforms for the state workers’ compensation system have resulted in substantial employer premium savings, but there are more savings to be had through concerted efforts to reduce the number of workplace injuries in Montana.

That was the focus of a presentation at the Kalispell Chamber of Commerce luncheon Thursday led by Fred Miller, an occupational health and safety specialist.

Miller represents “WorkSafeMT,” a nonprofit organization working to raise awareness among employers about just how much can be saved when a “culture of safety” is established in a workplace.

As it stands, Montana exceeds the national average for the number of workplace injuries in just about every employment category, Miller said.

“On every single one of these our incident rates are higher than the national average,” he said. “This is a huge problem ... These are the root causes for why we have high workers’ compensation rates.”

Miller said it has been calculated that Montana’s work-comp system would save about $145 million annually if injury frequency was brought in line with the national average.

So Miller and WorkSafeMT are outlining a practical path to improving workplace safety that emphasizes the potential savings employers stand to reap in the form of lower work-comp rates.

It starts with adopting a written workplace safety plan and implementing it. Adopting other measures — such as pre-employment drug testing and physicals and carrying out employee reference checks and refresher training — all can add up.

The bottom line is that if a business goes for several years with no workplace injuries, the employer’s experience rating will go down and it will have leverage to negotiate lower rates among workers’ compensation insurance providers.

“If your risk goes down, the pricing has to follow,” Miller said.

Just having the written safety plan and drug testing can reduce rates by 10 percent. Combined with a low experience rating, businesses can save as much as 25 percent in workers’ compensation rates, Miller said.

Conversely, the same type of business that has no safety program and a record of workplace injuries can have an experience rating that results in higher-than-normal premiums.

The workers’ compensation cost differences between the two businesses can be astonishing, Miller said.

Businesses that adopt a culture of safety tend to be more profitable and more capable of finding customers for their products and services.

If safety is first, Miller said, quality and productivity follow.

State Rep. Scott Reichner, R-Bigfork, gave a presentation on how House Bill 334 has reduced across-the-board workers’ compensation rates in Montana by about 24 percent since it was passed last year. Before that, Montana had the dubious distinction of having some of the highest rates in the nation.

The state’s rates were “a job killer,” said Reichner, the bill’s lead sponsor. “Many jobs were leaving the state. Businesses were being crushed.”

The bill basically tightened and streamlined the system, and as a result, the costs incurred by a $400 million industry in Montana have been reduced by about $100 million, Reichner said.

Depending on their classifications, some types of businesses have benefited more than others, Reichner said, noting that he has heard from some businesses that are saving as much as $40,000 compared to what they paid last year.

Reichner said the legislation will result in some additional savings as it is fully implemented over the next two or three years, but the Legislature may take further action next year to provide even more savings.

“There’s much more we need to do,” he said.

The meeting concluded with a workshop for local employers to start the process of developing workplace safety plans. More information on how to save on workers’ compensation costs can be found online at: http://www.worksafemt.com.

Reporter Jim Mann may be reached at 758-4407 or by email at jmann@dailyinterlake.com.