Workers’ comp claims spike 10% on hot and cold days
NCCI: Compared to mild-weather baseline, heat is associated with more claims in every sector.
Employees file 10% more workers’ compensation claims on hot and cold days, according to a report by the National Council on Compensation Insurance (NCCI).
Both motor and cognitive performance degrades under these conditions, the data showed, with negative effects of poor outdoor weather also extending to indoor tasks.
“Compared to the mild-weather baseline, we found heat is associated with more claims in every sector,” NCCI Senior Economist Patrick Coate told PropertyCasualty360.com.
“These effects are largest for outdoor sectors like construction, natural resources, and a mix of subsectors we defined as upkeep and maintenance, which includes landscaping work,” he added. “For cold and wet days, we found the largest frequency increases in the transportation and warehousing sector. Delivery drivers can be affected by both road conditions and increased risk of slip and falls.”
Other key NCCI findings include:
- Since the pandemic, injury frequency on very cold days is lower, perhaps due to an increase in hybrid and remote work.
- An increase in winter precipitation is likely to affect workers compensation claims primarily in colder cities, which have more days with temperatures near freezing.
- Frequency increases due to temperatures at the upper and lower end of the range are large and statistically significant, but were slightly smaller in the 2010s and 2020s than in the 2000s.
According to the NCCI, weather’s impact on claims has not changed much the last 20 years, although there is evidence impacts are smaller on hotter days the last decade, while claims on very cold days have declined since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.
See also: