The California Workers’ Compensation Institute has a relatively new study out showing a decreased frequency of workers’ compensation claims for private self-insured employers in 2010.  The CWCI does great work, and I previously blogged about a study the institute performed having to do with temporary disability levels.

The study concluded that while claim frequency has fallen, the average claim has risen.  Your humble author has heard, directly and indirectly from people in Human Resources, that employees are becoming more and more reluctant in the filing of actual, good-faith claims.  Of course, the fraudsters and cheats are going to do as they do, but it appears the honest worker is becoming less likely to file a real claim.

In Grinberg logic, this makes sense – jobs are not littering the streets of California anymore; instead they fill the air with their death cries and stain the roads with their treadmarks (usually leading to Arizona or Texas).

So if you can conceal your ankle injury and continue working at your desk, odds are that your personal health insurance will cover the medical treatment and the temporary and permanent disability will run out long before the first paycheck of a new job comes in.

But the important thing to note is that we are, by no means, out of the woods.  Claims are still being made and, as soon as jobs become less scarce, claim frequency will go back up.  And, while the average claim cost will fall when balanced with less serious injuries, the total cost to employers will rise again.