The Workers’ Compensation Insurance Rating Bureau of California (WCIRB) said in a statement that expanding workers’ comp to include a COVID-19 presumption for essential workers in the state could cost as must as $33.6 billion, or 61% of the estimated total cost of the state’s comp system prior to the pandemic.

The bureau evaluated the financial impact of COVID-19 claims filed by essential workers presumed to have contracted the virus on the job at the request of the California State Assembly Insurance Committee. In its evaluation, WCIRB included health care workers, firefighters, emergency responders, front-line law enforcement officers and other essential infrastructure employees, as defined by Governor Gavin Newsom’s executive order. Almost 6.8 million workers are classified as essential.

The researchers looked at data from Wuhan, China’s rate of illness suffered by first responders and health care workers as their high benchmark of 60% and a low-end illness rate of 4%, with estimates of anywhere from 0.8% to 12% of these essential workers filing a comp claim for COVID-19.

Using the state’s fee schedule, WCIRB estimates that for essential workers with mild claims the average cost will be $1,500. For those with severe claims costs are estimated at $51,000 per claim, about $127,000 for critical cases.

The State Compensation Insurance Fund announced that it will accept claims for essential workers diagnosed with the virus regardless of whether they can demonstrate that they contracted the virus during the course of their work.

Workers must have a confirmed positive test and the diagnosis must be between the time when the governor issued the stay-at-home order and the time it is lifted. The state fund will also provide temporary disability benefits to any covered essential worker who must self-quarantine if they are not covered by another source. They also announced they will double the size of their essential business support fund to $50 million and created a $50 million safety protocol fund to help businesses that were deemed non-essential with grants to defray safety-related expenses once the stay-at-home restrictions are removed.

Read more here.