Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, September 5, 1993 TAG: 9309030015
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: D-3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: ELLEN FORMAN FORT LAUDERDALE SUN-SENTINEL
DATELINE: FORT LAUDERDALE, FLA. LENGTH: Medium
That's the surprising finding of the National Council on Compensation Insurance, the Boca Raton, Fla.-based research and rate-making organization.
In a study of 10 states, claims peaked at $14.6 million in 1987 and fell every year since to $3.7 million in 1990. Claims related to mental stress increased through the early 1980s, peaked in 1987 and have since abated.
Tighter controls on the state levels, rather than a stress-free workplace, are causing the drop, according to N. Mike Helvacian, research economist in the claims research department of NCCI and author of the study.
"The way that state laws are written and enforced have a lot more to do with the frequency of claim filings than anything else, including actual stress," he said.
About 25 percent of stress-related claims are filed after the worker lost his or her job, Helvacian said.
State laws in Oregon and California have been tightened, resulting in fewer stress claims. In pre-reform California, for example, only 10 percent of the stress disability had to be work-related for an individual to receive workers' comp. The law was recently changed so that 50 percent of the disability has to be directly related to work.
Under a permissive stress-related claims law, Oregon claims went from 4.9 per thousand claims, more than twice the national rate of 2.2 per thousand, to 12.4 per thousand, almost four times the national rate.
Oregon laws were reformed starting in 1987, allowing stress claims to be filed only if injuries were a direct consequence of work. Claims went down dramatically.
Stress claims are costly, averaging about 52 percent more than traumatic injury claims. But they are less costly than other occupational diseases.
Loss of work from stress claims lasted an average of 39 weeks, compared to 24 weeks for traumatic injury claims and 36 weeks for occupational disease claims. Stress claimants were also more likely to hire attorneys - 53 percent did, compared with 8 percent of injury claims and 36 percent of occupational disease claims. Insurers contested two-thirds of stress claims as opposed to only 7 percent of injury claims.
Women accounted for half of all mental-stress claims, compared with 24 percent of injury claims and 32 percent of occupational-disease claims.
by CNB