A research by NCCI Holdings Inc. has revealed that a sudden halt in the trend of decreasing frequency of workers compensation claims may have been caused by several Great Recession factors.
In its brief research NCCI said that in mid-2009 modest increases in employment since the recession formally ended and workers possibly being less fearful of losing their jobs for filing claims may have contributed to a 3% rise in the frequency of lost-time claims during accident year 2010.
There was a decline of 4.3% on average since 1990 in the frequency of compensation claims, prior to 2010, and the only increases occurred in 1994 and 1997.
The rating and research organization said that reductions in claim frequency have been a major bright spot for workers compensation, with injury rates falling a total of 56.4% from 1990 through 2009.
NCCI further noted that claims frequency gets a push by increase in employment because new hires generally file more claims than longer-term employees.