AUGUSTA – An annual checkup on workers compensation insurers in Maine – who’s paying people on time, who’s following the letter of the law – shows slight improvement last year over 2002.

“The trends are still in the upward direction so we’re very pleased,” said Steve Minkowsky, deputy director at the Workers’ Compensation Board. “As you get to the higher levels of compliance it’s always more of an effort.”

Among the findings in the 2003 Annual Compliance Report approved by the board last week:

• 82 percent of employers notified the state within seven days of a serious workplace injury.

• 86 percent of insurers paid initial benefits within 14 days, when benefits were OK’d.

• Out-of-state firms had lower compliance rates.

• The number of injured employees who missed a day or more of work dropped 529 to 16,362, as measured by first Reports.

Maine Employers’ Mutual Insurance Co. is the largest policyholder in Maine, with 62 percent of the insured market, spokesman Michael Bourque said.

Its on-time payment compliance rate ticked up from 89 percent to 92 percent.

“This is one of the measures we hold ourselves accountable to every year,” he said. “We look at it as a point of pride we always talk about with our customers. We’re the big guys here, we’ve got to lead the way.”

In the first year of the report in 1997, compliance statewide was as low as 37 percent.

Paul Dionne, executive director of the Workers’ Compensation Board, said the data this year will be used to drive closer review of low-performing companies.

Insurers can be audited, penalized, put on a corrective action plans – nine currently are – or the board can recommend the Bureau of Insurance suspend a license to practice in Maine.

Workers compensation is big business in Maine. Companies large and small will pay $8.7 million this year to run the system and more than $440 million in premiums.

In the 2004 Annual Compliance Report, the first quarter of which will come out this fall, the board will start measuring the number of claims denied benefits in the first 14 days after injury, Minkowsky said. Those cases enter the dispute resolution process.

Those numbers could be used in the future to review whether a company is unreasonably denying claims.

More information may be obtained from the Maine Workers’ Compensation Board Web site, www.maine.gov/wcb.