Diseño de vigas tipo

Minimum 1,493,692 619,738 Time-loss claims (>3 days lost) 44,914 30,886 16,058 Rate per 100,000 Employees 2,562 1,723 2,159 Total permanent disability

claims (>50% in B.C.)

450 1,173 351

Total permanent disability

rate per 100,000 employees

26 65 47

SOURCE: Compiled by the authors.

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It is worth noting that B.C. also estimates employment level, but they collect data on the payroll and then estimate number of employees using average wages for the industry. This would result in over or under estimates of specific establishment employment according to whether their wages were more or less than the industry average.

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Even deducting the time-loss claims of less than four days’ duration (to compensate for no waiting period in B.C.) there were significantly more time-loss claims in B.C. than for the Washington state fund. When expressed as a rate of time-loss claims per 100,000 employees, British Columbia is 49 percent higher than the Washington state fund and 19 percent higher than Washington self-insured employers. We do not know to what extent this may reflect the

inadequacy of our adjustment mechanism (simply dropping the claims with less than four days lost time in B.C.). It seems likely that a waiting period would serve to inhibit claims, generally speaking. If a worker is slightly injured and stays home for a couple of days following medical treatment for a work-related injury, there is little incentive to pursue a workers’ compensation claim, especially if the medical costs will be covered by employer-paid health insurance.

It is also necessary to be aware of the differences between the disability measures reported by the two systems. We will report measures for each system that are broadly

comparable, but use different nomenclature and different administrative processes. For British Columbia, we will report the number of permanent functional impairment (PFI) awards and the number of loss of earnings (LOE) awards; and also the estimated number of those that involve more than 50 percent disability. This amounts to assuming that a total permanent disability (TPD) award in Washington could be triggered by a worker with the equivalent of a 50 percent impairment rating in B.C.

For calendar accident year 2001, B.C. recorded 2,919 permanent functional impairment claims through the end of 2007 for a rate of 166 per 100,000 employees. Approximately 75 of the B.C. claims were for PFI ratings at 50 percent impairment or above. In addition, they experienced 371 LOE pensions from accident year 2001 to date, of which approximately 204 were rated at greater than 50 percent loss of earnings capacity. Since these loss of earnings figures are not yet fully mature, we project that there will ultimately be another 170 LOE awards based upon experience from prior years. Deducting the small overlap between categories, our estimate of “total” permanent disability claims (over 50 percent disability) in British Columbia would be a maximum of 450 claims for calendar accident year 2001. This would yield an incidence rate of 26 “total” permanent disability claims per 100,000 employees.

For total permanent disability claims, it is estimated that the Washington state fund will ultimately realize about 1,173 TPD claims for fiscal accident year 2001–2002, while the self- insured employers are expected to record 351 TPD claims at ultimate development. This would

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give rates of 65 TPD claims per 100,000 employees for the state fund and 47 TPD claims per 100,000 employees for self-insured employers. In both cases we are using the maximum estimated state employment for the base. If we used the minimum estimated state employment level these rates would be increased by about 25 percent. Therefore, using the 50 percent rated impairment level to estimate the equivalent of total permanent disability claims in British Columbia would yield a rate of 26 claims per 100,000 employees. So, the incidence is 2.5 times as high for the Washington state fund and two times as high for Washington self-insurers.

This estimate is more directly comparable than the NCCI statistics, as it is not subject to measurement distortion due to compromise and release, or other system characteristics not present in Washington. Thus, both comparison with other U.S. jurisdictions through NCCI statistics and a more carefully controlled comparison with a similar workers’ compensation jurisdiction have led to the conclusion that there is a very high incidence of total permanent disability awards in the state of Washington.

Time-Loss Duration of Claims

Given the high incidence of total permanent disability awards in Washington and the long durations (described in chapter 2) before a pension determination is made in Washington, it would be very meaningful to compare durations of disability claims in Washington and British Columbia as well. Figure 3.1 directly compares the number of 2002 calendar accident year workers’ compensation claims still active (meaning some indemnity payment was made in the last quarter of the calendar year) at the end of each year through 2006 for Washington and British Columbia.

British Columbia has slightly fewer active claims at the end of the initial or injury year, despite the higher incidence of time-loss claims discussed earlier. But the number of active time- loss claims falls off dramatically over the second through fifth years. From a little over 5,000 active claims with injury dates in 2002 at the end of 2002, the inventory of active 2002 claims falls to under 1,000 by the end of the second year and under 500 by the end of the third year.

In contrast, Washington with 6,000 active claims from 2002 at the end of the accident year, still has over 3,000 active at the end of the second year, and 2,000 active at the end of the third year. Thus, claims in Washington are much more likely to have extended time-loss durations. These data are roughly consistent with what was presented earlier in Tables 2.8 and 2.9. Long time-loss claims are very likely to end up as total permanent disability pensions, so