The state of workers’ comp

The National Academy of Social Insurance has just released its latest report on workers’ compensation. This is required reading for any serious student of work comp; it’s stuffed with insights just waiting for you.

Here’s a few.

Note – COVID’s impact on 2020 results are significant especially re medical costs and the relation of medical to other work comp financial metrics.

• From 2016 – 2020, medical benefits paid (per $100 of covered wages) dropped by almost 25%.
• This followed a 17 point drop over the previous five years …
  • this massive decline is (likely) due primarily to lower claim frequency
• Medical costs…
  • totaled $27.7 billion in 2020, $2.5 billion less than 2019
  • accounted for 53% of benefits in 2020, down from 56% in 2019
  • a reminder to those who predicted massive increases in medical costs due to COVID; a much deeper understanding of healthcare delivery, cost drivers, and sources of cost data would be quite helpful.
• CWCI’s analysis indicated the Golden State accounted for a fifth of all benefits paid (Bulletin available at no cost to CWCI members)
• Overall, employers’ work comp payroll-adjusted costs dropped almost 9 percent from 2019 to 2020

The report can be downloaded for free.