No published Australian national cost for missing or insufficient insurance cover in construction

What it is. None - national statistics give premium rates and claim costs for insured employers, not the cost of uninsured contractors or under-declared wages.

Sample. Search terms used: WHS prosecutions average fine Safe Work Australia; comparative performance monitoring fines per conviction; Federal Safety Commissioner annual data accreditation suspended revoked; Key WHS statistics median compensation construction; uninsured contractors workers compensation premium avoidance under-declared wages construction; national estimate workers compensation premium underpayment black economy; AFCA datacube business insurance claim denied. Not opened because the page refused automated access (403): the NSW regulator's review of under-insurance, WorkCover WA's page on uninsured employers, AFCA's datacube page. A frequency exists, but it is not a cost of missing cover: the standardised construction premium rate was 2.29% of payroll in 2021-22 against 1.34% for all industries; that is what insured employers pay, and it is a rate on payroll that the schema cannot hold (no payroll denominator).

What it is not. Recorded as none on purpose. The construction premium rate would price the premium avoided by under-declaring, but no national source read states how much payroll goes undeclared or uninsured, so a loss cannot be built without inventing it. The state figures found are scheme totals for one state.

Where it came from

• Safe Work Australia (2023), Comparative Performance Monitoring Report 25th edition: Premiums
  Australian average premium rates by industry, p.8; Standardised premium rates for Construction by jurisdiction, p.11 · source record

Considered and set aside

• Office of the Federal Safety Commissioner: Table 23 reports accredited companies' premium rate change over time (57% reduced it by an average 33% after three years); a benefit of accreditation, not a cost of lacking cover.
• Department of Employment and Workplace Relations: Quotes earlier scheme premium reduction data (more than 60% of companies, 37% after six years); nothing on uninsured work or under-declared wages.
• Safe Work Australia: Construction median compensation AU$18,500 per serious claim is what schemes paid on claims; it does not separate claims on uninsured or under-insured employers.
• WorkCover Queensland: Queensland only: unpaid premium plus a penalty of 100% of it, AU$4,181,129 premium raised for uninsured or under-insured employers in 2025-26 to 30 September 2025, all industries; a state scheme total, not a per-job figure.
• Deloitte Access Economics for Safe Work Australia: Modelled economy-wide gain (AU$28.6 billion a year); not a cost to a contractor of an insurance gap.
• Safe Work Australia: WHS prosecutions do not cover insurance offences, and the average fine is not split by breach.
• Safe Work Australia: Records WHS Act and Regulation offences only; no insurance field.
• Safe Work Australia: Enforcement tables cover WHS notices and fines, not workers compensation premium compliance.

non_compliance/insurance_compliance_no_published_figure_au · AU · ALL ·the record ·link to this figure ·dispute this figure(or email support@demiton.io)