Hawai'i employers are due for another cut in their workers' compensation premiums next year because of progress being made in workplace safety.

The National Council on Compensation Insurance has filed a request with the state Insurance Division for a 4.1 percent cut in "loss costs," the biggest expense used by insurers in setting premiums. Loss costs represent the amounts paid for claims by insurers.

The cut, which would effect premiums beginning Jan. 1, would mark the fifth straight yearly decline.

"This is the largest workers' compensation insurance rate decline of any state in the nation, except possibly those states that have enacted major statutory reforms," said J.P. Schmidt, the state insurance commissioner.

"These lower rates show that Hawai'i's employers are effectively providing a safer workplace for our workers," he said.

Over the past four years, Schmidt has approved decreases of 19.3 percent, 18.2 percent, 12.3 percent and 11.6 percent in loss costs as evidence continued to show a significant reduction in claims.

This latest reduction brings the total decrease in workers' compensation loss costs to 65.5 percent over the past five years.

Schmidt said the reduction in workers' compensation claims is the a result of the Hawai'i Occupational Safety and Health division of the state Department of Labor and Industrial Relation working with Hawai'i's employers and labor organizations to enforce workplace safety and health laws.