Praise premature

Your lead editorial on Nov. 29 was premature if not misleading. The National Council on Compensation Insurance has not filed a 3.8-percent “loss cost” reduction. This must be approved before it goes into effect.

Maine Employers Mutual may be worthy of your praise, but as a peddler to the residual market, approximately 80 percent of the employers in our state, the cost of Workers’ Compensation in Maine rose an average of 25 percent plus from 1992-1993. The cost has reached a high enough level for some business owners to exclude themselves from protection, to break the law by not buying compensation insurance, and-or by replacing full-time employees with part-timers.

It usually takes more than one year of loss experience to change rates. Maybe the 1993 rates are so high that Maine Employers Mutual’s profits need immediate modification before the policy owners, who are stockholders, rebel at the costs of Workers’ Compensation in Maine.

Also, will any possible rate decrease be offset by another increase in the Fresh Start Surcharge, now at 7.5 percent of premium? Stay tuned! John F. Milliken East Blue Hill