Report: COVID-19 Accounts for 1-in-9 California Workers’ Comp Claims in 2020

Wow --- We are seeing a depletion of capacity/increased costs for health care and other "client-facing" industries.  The why ---

"CWCI says that brings the total for the year to 41,861 claims, or 11.2% of all California job injury claims reported for accident year 2020. Those claims included 224 death claims, up from 160 reported as of Aug. 10.".005 of all claims in California are a COVID19 fatality year to date.  The unknowns are the reopens, adjusted reserves and longevity of the severe and critical patients.  Still much unknown -

September 28, 2020

The California workers’ compensation COVID-19 claim count continued to grow in August, albeit at a much slower rate than in July, with new data showing that as of Sept. 21, the state had recorded 5,130 COVID-19 claims with August injury dates, according to data compiled by the California Workers’ Compensation Institute.

CWCI says that brings the total for the year to 41,861 claims, or 11.2% of all California job injury claims reported for accident year 2020. Those claims included 224 death claims, up from 160 reported as of Aug. 10.The latest claim count shows that the number of COVID-19 claims reported to the Division of Workers’ Compensation doubled from May to June, then increased another 16% in July. The numbers reported for August, however, fell sharply, even accounting for the lag in the reporting of COVID-19 claims, according to CWCI.The CWCI projects there could ultimately be 8,208 COVID-19 claims with August injury dates. Given that the latest tally suggests COVID-19 claim volume may have peaked in July, CWCI is now projecting 48,086 COVID-19 claims with January through August injury dates, which is less than the January through July projection from last month.CWCI reports that the distribution by industry shows health care workers continue to account for the largest share of California’s COVID-19 claims, filing 38.1% of the claims recorded for the first 8 months of this year, followed by public safety/government workers who accounted for 15.8%. Rounding out the top five industries based on COVID-19 claim volume were retail trade (7.6%), manufacturing (7.6%), and transportation (5.0%). In addition, the percentage of denied COVID-19 claims declined to 28.6% from CWCI’s May report of 35.5%.Related:

• Report: COVID-19 Workers’ Comp Claims on The Rise in California

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