The year 2009 marks the lowest level of total recorded work-site injuries and illnesses since 2003. Incident rates declined to 3.6 cases per 100 employees from 3.8 in 2008. The Bureau of Labor Statistics released key findings of the Occupational Injury and Illness Survey. This is great news for Queens NY, Brooklyn NY, Manhattan NY Workers Compensation Insurance carriers , and those who purchase Workers Compensation Insurance on the surface at least.
What the insurance carriers and the Department of Labor are noticing though is that businesses who purchase NY & NJ Workers Compensation Insurance are under reporting their claims which calls into question the results noted about. Listening to Peter Rothbart speak at a Workers Compensation conference in Chicago this fall he revealed that the workers compensation system in general has created a huge financial biased for businesses not to report many small injuries that may have been reported in prior years. The bias occurs because businesses don’t want their DART Incident Rate adversely effected , nor their NY Workers Compensation Experience modification factor to rise because of a small, inconsequential injury.
Thus although the reported injury numbers may be down, overall the claims experience , and loss results for those carriers who write NY Workers Compensation Insurance , and NJ Workers Compensation Insurance has not followed suit. It’s the claims results by individual carriers that ultimately dictates price.