Boca Raton, FL – NCCI recently released a new first-look report on Temporary Disability Duration in Workers’ Compensation, noting that the majority of lost-time claims receive temporary disability benefits at some point.
Given their ubiquity, it’s important to develop a thorough understanding of these benefits. The brief is the first in a series on workers compensation temporary disability benefits.
The brief presents the following as they relate to temporary disability duration:
- An examination of key claimant and injury characteristics in data reported to NCCI, including age, economic sector, body system, and medical condition.
- A series of empirical distributions that aid in identifying differences across the claim characteristics and provides industry benchmarks.
From 2010 to 2013, NCCI published a series of briefs on temporary total disability benefit duration. The new 2023 update looks at all temporary disability (TD) benefits which includes both temporary total disability (TTD) and temporary partial disability (TPD) benefits.
The new brief utilizes data as reported in NCCI’s Indemnity Data Call (IDC), which has more detailed benefit payment information than previously available data sources, but is currently limited in claim maturity. As such, this study evaluates TD duration as of 12 months. For context, at the 12-month maturity, 96.7% of all TD claims have gone more than seven days without receiving a benefit payment, indicating that a significant share of TD claimants have returned to work or are receiving permanent disability benefits within 12 months of the accident date.
Previous duration studies distinguished between “pure TTD”1 claims and “healing period”2 claims, while this study aggregates both claim types. As additional data is reported, and claims can be evaluated at later maturities, this framework will be updated to differentiate between these two types of claims.
Additional data will also make it possible to monitor trends by accident year. Note that the study period coincides with the COVID-19 pandemic (refer to Appendix A for more information). As this analysis is extended into subsequent years, it will become increasingly evident how the pandemic influenced the results presented in this brief.
Read the free brief: NCCI: Temporary Disability Duration in Workers Compensation—A First Look
Source: NCCI