Trends in workers compensation costs in a hotel-operating company over a six-year period.

Abstract

A large Honolulu-based hotel-operating company reviewed its workers compensation costs over the last 6 years. Data retrieved from the company's computerized data base is used to describe trends in injury incidence rate, average cost per claim, average medical cost per claim, and medical expenses as a percentage of total costs. Factors that might have influenced these parameters include company reorganization, employee training and safety programs, changes in the economy, company morale, aggressive case management, and the quality of the adjusting services hired. Cause-and-effect relationships, although suggested, cannot be proven. The data is presented, in this year of imminent workers compensation legislative reform, to increase the available factual data base on which rational and efficacious reform proposals can be developed.