Today’s issue of WorkCompRecap features the release of the second phase of a collaborative report from NCCI and nine other workers’ compensation rating bureaus that aims to better understand the COVID-19 pandemic’s impact on the industry overall.
Key findings included that for the 45 jurisdictions representing $1.1 billion in COVID-19-related losses from about 117,000 claims, the average claim cost during the two-year study period was approximately $9,600. On average, COVID-19 claims decreased from 11% of workers’ comp lost-time claims reported in AY 2020 to 4% in AY 2021. Approximately 75% of reported COVID-19 lost-time claims were from the healthcare sector, while that sector only accounts for about 9% of non-COVID-19 lost-time claims. The study also notes that indemnity-only claims, while uncommon for non-COVID-19 claims, continued to represent the largest share of COVID-19 claims.