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COVID-19 accounts for more than half of Calif. death claims

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The California Workers’ Compensation Institute reports COVID-19 was the leading cause of job-related death claims in accident year 2020, accounting for 866 out of 1,563 claims.

“COVID death claims declined steadily from January through June of this year, but COVID remained the leading cause of workplace fatalities claimed during the first half of 2021, accounting for 166 out of the 202 death claims,” CWCI said in a report released Friday.

“Altogether, the 1,032 COVID death claims reported for the first 18 months of the pandemic represented more than half (53.4%) of the 1,931 workers’ compensation death claims recorded for that period.”

While the majority of the COVID-19 claims have not involved a worker fatality, CWCI said the 1,032 deaths translate to a rate of 6.96 fatality claims for every 1,000 COVID-19 claims. Over the same period, death claims accounted for 899 of the 803,228 non-COVID-19 claims, a rate of 1.12 fatality claims per 1,000 non-COVID-19 claims.

“While that nearly matches the death claim rate from 2019, before there were any COVID claims, it also underscores the extent of the new risk as it means that since the pandemic began, death claims have been more than six times as prevalent among COVID claims than among non-COVID claims,” CWCI reports.

CWCI said workers comp COVID-19 claim experience has largely tracked with overall COVID-19 experience in California, with claims increasing along with infection rates and falling as new infections started to subside.

WorkCompCentral is a sister publication of Business Insurance. More stories here.

 

 

 

 

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