According to the May Compact, the Minnesota Workers’ Compensation System Report for 2008 will be coming out soon. Once it is posted I will make sure to post a link. For the time being we have been left with some highlights of the report which are as follows:

• From 1997 to 2008, the overall claims rate declined from 8.7 to 5.4 paid claims per
  100 full-time-equivallent workers, a decrease of 38 percent.
• The total cost of the workers’ compensation system was an estimated $1.35 per $100 of payroll in 2008, 16 percent less than in 1997 and just above the low-point of $1.31 for 2000. Total system cost was an estimated $1.5 billion in 2008.
• 1997, and indemnity benefi ts were 18 percent lower, refl ecting the net effect of the falling claim rate and higher benefi ts per claim.
•  The vocational rehabilitation participation rate – the percentage of paid indemnity claims with a vocational rehabilitation plan filed – increased from 15 percent to 23 percent between 1997 and 2008.
• The average cost per vocational rehabilitation participant was $8,350 in 2008, an increase of 34 percent from 1998 after adjusting for average wage growth.
• Vocational rehabilitation accounted for an estimated 3.1 percent of total workers’ compensation system cost for 2008.
• The percentage of vocational rehabilitation participants with a job at plan closure fell from 71 percent in 1998 to 53 percent in 2008.

The one thing we know about work comp is that it is a business for employers and insurers. The sad but true fact is that statistics can be manipulated, and because we rely on numbers to tell the truth, the results can be misleading. We will have to wait to see the report to confirm or deny the results.