Workers Comp Trends in New NCCI Loss Costs Report
Whenever the NCCI (National Council on Compensation Insurance) issues any statistical report, I like to see if there are any Workers Comp trends or anomalies. Check out this report summary and the full report here-PDF file. Both of them are freebies – no paywalls.
The report will be presented at the 2024 NCCI Annual Insights Symposium (AIS) in two weeks. You can find more on the upcoming 2024 AIS here.
Thanks to Madison and Cristine from NCCI for forwarding the notice when the report was published. The charts alone are worth a read. One of the charts is included below. One of the long-standing workers comp anomalies occurred over the last 20+ years. Accident frequency has declined every year except for two.
_____________________________________
From the NCCI report –
One key takeaway from the paper is that frequency declines are mostly driven by lower incidence rates for virtually every type of worker. While claim frequency has shown a persistent decline over many years, this long term-pattern is interrupted from time to time with increases in claim frequency. One such instance occurred in 2010 after the Great Recession and a slight increase in 2021 after the significant decrease in frequency in 2020. Following the peak of the COVID pandemic, with more employees working from home in various occupations, claim frequency reverted to its long-term declining pattern.
_________________________
As the old saying goes – the lowest cost claim is the one that never happens. Safety measures put in place by employers have reduced the number of injured employees significantly. For example, one of the great workers comp trends, Carpal Tunnel Syndrome (CTS) – a repetitive motion injury to the wrists – used to occur very frequently in manufacturing environments. The number of CTS claims was reduced by 50% in less than a decade. Safety always wins out.
I will cover more of the report in two weeks when I am attending the 2024 AIS in Orlando. If my wrists allow it, I will post some of the sessions live.
