Recently, I was interviewed on my workers' comp opinions. The same reporter interviewed me in 2022 on a few workers' comp issues.

James Moore

I decided to see how accurate my and other workers' comp professionals’ opinions from three years ago at the height of the pandemic were, or were not, looking back to March 2022.

For reference, the reporter’s name is Phillip M. Perry, and you can find the 2022 article here.

Going back three years to see which prognostications came to fruition can be risky. I will not identify the interviewees, only their quotes and accuracy. The next section covers my workers' comp opinions along with other WC professionals.

Let us look at the workers’ comp opinions from the 2022 article for opinion accuracy.

“COVID-19 claims have never or will never reach the expected levels.”

Correct. Check out my prior article that pointed out a study graph on COVID claims levels. The health care industry did have a large and expected increase. The graph in the article indicates that COVID reached only low levels in workplace injuries.

“The average cost on COVID claims is less than $5,000.”

And:

“In contrast, the average cost for a typical workers’ comp claim — combining medical and lost time — is about $20,000.”

Correct. Other than in the health care industry, the COVID claims were not as expensive as expected. 

“If they can show that an injury was in the course and scope of their employment, it would be compensable. I could see an employer disputing it, but I don’t think it would go very far.”

Correct. Most COVID-19 claims were paid by the insurance carriers.

People are finally getting medical treatment they need after avoiding going to the doctor’s office for so long.”

And:

“I’ve been seeing quite a few mega claims because people are delaying treatment for something like back surgery for 18 months. By the time they get treatment, the condition is worse.”

Correct. In my claims loss run analyses, many injured employees did not want to attend an appointment due to COVID-19 pandemic exposure.

Bottom line

Most of the workers' comp opinions from the article were correct. I did not cover them all. I do encourage readers to go to the first article to see more workers' comp opinions from three years ago.

Most of them were correct, even though not all of the data was in from the pandemic.

This blog post is provided by James Moore, AIC, MBA, ChFC, ARM, and is republished with permission from J&L Risk Management Consultants. Visit the full website at www.cutcompcosts.com.