In a recent report it was said that workers’ compensation insurance coverage is not being utilized to finance work injuries because workers as well as employers are afraid to report the injuries. As a substitute, these injuries are most often treated either under group health or public health insurance. That means insurance providers avoid legitimate medical and disability claims, while collecting insurance premiums, and either the taxpayers or the group insurer gets stuck with the bill.

As a matter of fact, workers’ compensation claim frequency has progressively declined since 1990. It dropped almost 50% between 2004 and 2007 alone. The number of claims per 1,000 workers has dropped from 27.1 claims in 2002 to only 14.7 claims in 2007.

Half of injury-at-work claims have vanished and it’s not because no one is getting injured but workers despair over getting required medical care and fair disability compensation for their injuries.

The only solutions we can see here are: for everyone to become more careful which will avoid some injuries and to properly educate employers of the appropriateness of filing a claim for benefits when there is a legitimate work injury.