Early in August, the California Workers' Compensation Institute released an online application to support interactive analyses and comparisons of COVID-19 and non-COVID-19 claims. The new tool features data integrated from sources including the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and the California Division of Workers' Compensation, Workers' Compensation Information System (DWC, WCIS). Available to the public via an online application, the new tool focuses on comparing California Workers' Comp COVID-19 and Non-COVID-19 claims submitted within the first six months of both 2019 and 2020, including 14,470 COVID-19 claims from 2020.
The tool features a dozen different metrics and several areas of analysis for the user to explore and use for analysis, including COVID-19 claim counts by month, with the ability to filter by industry, region, worker demographics, and injury characteristics, denial rates for both COVID-19 and Non-COVID-19 claims by month, and a chart that provides the 2019 claims numbers, the 2020 predicted claims numbers, and the actual number of claims filed in 2020 by month.
CWCI reportedly plans to refresh the page regularly in order to keep the information current, and eventually include additional data when claim type and cost data becomes available.
You can access the interactive tool here: California COVID-19 and Non-COVID-19 Interactive Tool.
Editors Note: Tools like this out of California are relevant not only for workers' compensation coverage but can also be useful across the insurance industry. Most of the trends we've seen so far have come out of the hospitality industry, and include business interruption, virus exclusion, and loss of business income arguments, but the rest of the insurance industry will likely be affected.