CLARA analytics: How to Reduce Litigation Costs in Your Claims Process

Attorney involvement has been steadily driving up workers' compensation claims costs over the past decade, and research reveals the problem has never been worse. For example, in 2014, the California Workers' Compensation Institute (CWCI) published results of a five-year study that showed when a single injured party brought in a lawyer, the associated costs per claim went up by an average of $40,000 for permanent disability payments and $25,000 for temporary total disability benefits -- even if the case never went to court. In Florida from 2016-2017, legal fees related to workers' comp claims totaled nearly $440 million -- approximately $254 million of that came from employers defending claims while injured workers themselves were responsible for $186 million (an increase of 36 percent in just one year). And then there is the national scale. In a newly released study from CLARA analytics, data collected from a single national payer from injury years 2007-2017 was focused on closed indemnity claims across multiple states.