Mr Harding and other executives will face a parliamentary hearing on Wednesday as part of an ongoing upper house investigation into icare and the NSW workers’ compensation scheme.
The bonuses linked to the 18 roles filled in 2021 were revealed in documents obtained under a parliamentary order. However,an icare spokesman told theHerald no executive bonuses have been paid in the past two years.
It comes more than a year after a joint investigation by theHerald and ABC TV’sFour Corners revealed icare had underpaid thousands of injured workers by up to $80 million while paying lavish bonuses to top executives.
The insurer has since announced it would pay $38 million to 53,000 largely underpaid injured workers affected by historical miscalculation errors.
Icare provides workers’ compensation insurance to more than 326,000 public and private sector employers in NSW and their 3.6 million employees.
A budget estimates hearing last month heard the insurer reported a $1.4 billion underwriting loss in the past year,with the total accumulated loss of the past three years now exceeding $6 billion.
Icare’s annual report showed employee operating costs had risen by about $40 million in the past financial year,while its employee head count had increased by more than 250.