The Past and the Future of Workmen's Compensation Ratemaking

The development of the rating system for workmen's compensation insurance in the United States has been mainly a product of the last ten or twelve years. The problem has involved most of the contingencies with which life insurance deals, even such as remarriage and degree of dependency, the most important elements of fire insurance, such as a basic manual and a schedule and then some features peculiar to itself, such as experience rating. It is safe to say that never before has such a system of rating been developed in such a short time; and perhaps this stands today in its main features, although not in its refinements, as the most comprehensive rating system in the whole insurance field.