Report: Claims Associated with Violence in the Workplace on Decline

The National Council on Compensation Insurance released its fourth analysis in a series of reports on workplace violence.

The report provides updated data based on the latest available
information from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics on workplace
homicides and assaults by persons, and from NCCI on the characteristics of claims associated with workplace violence.

Key finding included in this analysis include:

·Progress continues to be made in reducing workplace violence, both
homicides and assaults. Workplace homicide rates are trending decidedly lower, down 25 percent between 2000 and 2006 and down 61 percent since 1992.

·Workplace assault rates have been more volatile on a year-to year
basis. Recently, the rate declined 20 percent in 2005 (the largest drop since 1998) and then turned up 6 percent in 2006. Nationally, assault rates (in term of aggravated assaults per 100,000 inhabitants) have shown a more consistent downward pattern.

·Robberies continue to be the major cause of workplace homicides,
accounting for roughly 70 percent of such deaths. The latest data is consistent with prior results that show that the primary victims of workplace homicides are in occupations where there is direct customer contact and where cash or other valuables are accessible, such as sales (e.g., cash register operators), security guards, and taxi drivers.

·Workplace assaults continue to concentrated in health services, social assistance, and personal care occupations. Workers in nursing homes are major victims, with roughly 50 percent of assaults in the healthcare industry occurring in such facilities.

·NCCI claims data provides separate breakouts for claims involving “in
act of crime.” Such claims are nine times more likely to involve a fatality than non-crime-related claims (2.7 percent of crime-related claims involve a fatality vs. 0.3 percent for all other claims).

·NCCI data also indicates that nonfatal crime-related claims, on average, involve more serious injuries — particularly to the head and central nervous system — than do non-crime claims (where back strains and sprains are more prevalent).

·In part because of the more serious nature of their injuries, crime-related claims have higher indemnity and medical severity (i.e., cost per claim) than other claims when claims are classified by cause of injury.

The entire report is accessible at www.ncci.com.

Source: NCCI
www.ncci.com