At the recent WCRI Annual Issues & Research Conference, Dr. Richard Victor, former CEO of the Workers Compensation Research Institute and current senior fellow with the Sedgwick Institute, discussed his views of workers’ compensation in the future.

Mark Walls

The workers’ compensation system was a compromise between labor and business, designed to provide no-fault benefits in an environment that gave exclusive remedy protections to employers.

Over the years, there have been ebbs and flows to the system in an effort to maintain balance. There is a constant struggle to balance benefits to workers with the costs of the system paid by employers.

In the past, when the workers’ compensation system got out of balance, it was due to actions from those within the system. That is something the system could correct with regulatory change. However, right now, there are things happening outside of the workers’ compensation system that could significantly affect it and cause a rethinking of the grand bargain.

Emerging labor shortages

Retiring baby boomers will cause labor shortages in health care and the insurance industry, which will delay claims and medical care. This will ultimately increase claims costs.

In addition, a stronger economy is ultimately going to lead to a severe labor shortage. When you pair the aging workforce and people retiring with a growing job market, you end up with not enough qualified applicants to fill the positions. Employers have to relax their hiring standards. This leads to unqualified applicants being hired. These people will likely have higher accident rates.

Changes in the non-occupational health system

As workers see their out-of-pocket health insurance costs rise, it becomes more attractive to try to shift illness and injury episodes into the workers’ compensation system. Richard feels that this shifting will result in a 25% increase in workers’ compensation claims by 2030.

With soft tissue injuries, it would be very easy for the worker to indicate that the injury happened at work instead of at home. Disproving that would be very challenging for employers. Higher deductibles will greatly encourage workers to look for these cost-shifting possibilities.

Millions of workers losing health insurance

The number of uninsured workers is expected to decrease significantly as elements of the Affordable Care Act are repealed or weakened. These uninsured workers are also highly encouraged to shift their treatment into the workers’ compensation system. Richard estimates a 15% increase in workers’ compensation claims due to this.

Aging workforce

The injury rates for the older workers is higher than for younger workers. As the U.S. workforce ages, we will see higher injury rates across the employee population.

Federal immigration policies and practices

Limiting the flow of immigrants into the U.S. at a time there is a labor shortage will only compound the problem. The only way to grow our workforce to keep up with the demand is with immigrants. All of the growth in the labor force going forward is projected to come from immigrants.

Roughly 15% of all health care workers in the U.S. are foreign-born. If we discourage immigration into this country, Richard feels it could cause a labor shortage in the health care industry.

It does not even take a change in policy to see a change in immigration flow. After the Brexit vote there was a significant reduction in European nurses registering to work in the U.K. This is even though there had yet to be a policy change in the country.

Conclusions

Taking all of the outside factors into consideration, Richard estimates a 55% increase in the number of workers’ compensation claims by the year 2030. When you add in medical inflation, the costs of the workers’ compensation system could triple by 2030, with no change in indemnity benefit levels.

With this significant increase in costs, there will be questions about the continued viability of workers’ compensation. What is the solution? Are there viable options to traditional workers’ compensation?

ERISA-style plans like the opt out in Texas have been widely criticized for providing inadequate protections for injured workers. Union carveout plans only apply to a very small sector of the workforce.

Could we see workers’ compensation claims organizations become accountable to both employers and workers, with employees having the ability to choose which claims organization they want to use?

Mark Walls is vice president of communications and strategic analysis at Safety National. This column from Safety National's Conference Chronicles and appears here with permission.