California Workers’ Compensation Institute (CWCI) released a report that says workers’ comp claim frequency for private self-insured employers in the state increased last year for the first time in ten years.

Indemnity and medical-only claims rose slightly since last year, but 2016 also recorded record lows.

In 2017 private self-insureds reported 79,655 claims which is a 1.6 percent increase over 2016 claims. The raw number of claims reported has increased the past few years but the number of claims per 100 workers increased in 2017 for the first time in a decade.

The CWCI used data from the Office of Self-Insurance Plans, containing self-insured claims experience for medical-only and indemnity claims reported in calendar year 2017. The summary includes number of claims, total paid and incurred losses (plus reserves), the number of employees covered by the private self-insured employers, and total wages and salaries.

The 2017 summary includes reports covering almost 2.26 million employees (2.37 million in 2016), with wages and salaries totaling $103.3 billion, 2.9 percent more than 2016’s total. Summary paid losses increased 6.2 percent compared to 2016’s numbers, in part due to a 10 percent increase in total medical payments. Total incurred losses on the first reports for 2017’s claims increased by 1.8 percent over 2016’s claims due to a growth in incurred medical.

The CWCI attributes the long string of reductions to a decline in claim volume, but recently the number of claims has started to increase and that, combined with increases in medical severity, has driven up paid and incurred losses.

Read more here.