When the Workplace Is Everywhere: The New Reality of Workers’ Comp Claims

Hybrid work is driving a new class of workers’ compensation risk—one that’s harder to verify, slower to resolve and increasingly costly. Understanding why and what to do about it requires a new approach to data, validation, and proactive risk management.

What was once a clearly defined workplace with fixed hours, controlled environments, and observable behavior has been replaced by a distributed model where work happens at kitchen tables, coffee shops, spare bedrooms, and everywhere in between.

For insurers and claims professionals, low-severity remote injury claims are quietly becoming long-tail cost drivers. Nearly 36 million Americans now work from home, blurring the line between workplace and personal space. Since 2020, remote injury claims have more than doubled, fueled less by acute accidents and more by cumulative issues like strain, stress, and ergonomic fatigue and extended exposure to unhealthy work habits.

The Normal Workday Collapse

In a traditional office environment, the workday had clear edges. Employees arrived at a known location, worked within defined hours, and performed tasks in standardized settings designed, at least in theory, to meet ergonomic and safety guidelines. If an injury occurred, claims teams could rely on timestamps, witnesses, and environmental controls to help validate what happened.

This all seems so simple. But it isn’t any longer. Hybrid and remote work have erased many of those assumptions.

Today, employees may start their day at 6 a.m., step away mid-morning to take a child to school, return in the afternoon and log back on again in the evening to finish work. Lunch breaks are fluid. Workdays stretch well beyond set hours. Personal and professional responsibilities are deeply intertwined.

From a claims perspective, this variability makes it difficult to establish what constitutes a “normal” workday. Without that baseline, officially determining whether an injury occurred in the course of work becomes far more complex. Verification goes beyond confirming a moment in time at a specific location to be about understanding patterns of behavior over weeks or months.

Lower-Severity Injuries Becoming Long-Tail Costs

Conditions like carpal tunnel syndrome, back and neck strain, chronic headaches, and stress-related complaints often begin as minor issues, with up to 61% of remote workers reporting new or worsened musculoskeletal pain. In an office setting, these symptoms were more likely to be addressed early. An employee could mention discomfort to a manager, request a new chair, or take a walk to reset. In remote environments, those early intervention points are often missing.

Employees working from home frequently push through discomfort to meet deadlines. Without the in-person visibility of a shared workplace, pain goes unreported. Over time, minor strain becomes chronic injury. Claims that might once have been resolved quickly now require extended treatment, driving up both direct medical costs and indirect expenses tied to lost productivity.

Extended work hours compound the problem. Many remote employees report working 50 to 60 hours per week, not because they are required to, but because the new work reality is always fluid and accessible. The absence of natural stopping points like commutes, office closures and social cues leads to prolonged exposure to repetitive motions and static postures.

The result is a steady accumulation of claims that are individually low-severity but collectively expensive. For insurers and employers alike, these long-tail costs represent a growing financial and operational burden without a clear solution.

Validation in a Boundaryless Environment

For claims professionals, validation has become one of the most challenging aspects of remote injury assessment. In the absence of witnesses or controlled environments, claims teams must rely heavily on the claimant’s account before turning to corroborating data.

Many employees also delay reporting injuries or discomfort beyond the first week—waiting more than seven days before seeking treatment or filing a claim—which can increase costs and complicate validation.

This is where digital tools and data aggregation play an increasingly critical role.

Social canvassing, for example, can provide contextual insights into an individual’s activities around the time of an alleged injury. Medical canvassing helps establish treatment timelines and patterns of care. When combined with employment records, workload data, and digital activity logs, these sources help paint a more complete picture of how a remote injury may have developed.

The goal is not to surveil employees or act as “Big Brother,” but to identify alignment (or misalignment) between reported injuries and documented work behaviors. Because work and personal life overlap, validation depends less on pinpointing a single incident and more on understanding whether an injury is consistent with an employee’s overall work pattern.

Post-Injury Investigation to Proactive Prevention

Historically, most organizations have focused their efforts on post-injury investigation. While this remains essential, it is no longer sufficient in a remote-first world. Prevention must become a central part of the strategy

Mental health is ranked as a top or moderate priority for 85% of employees, elevating the importance of evolving claims approaches. Beyond individual claims, aggregated data offers insurers and employers a powerful lens into broader behavioral trends.

When analyzed at scale, claims data can reveal patterns that are otherwise invisible:

• Employees consistently working extended hours without breaks
• Clusters of ergonomic-related injuries tied to specific roles or departments
• Increased stress-related claims during certain business cycles
• Delayed reporting timelines that correlate with higher claim severity

These insights allow organizations to move from reactive claims management to proactive risk identification. Instead of asking whether an injury was work-related after it occurs, insurers and employers can begin asking why certain risks are emerging in the first place.

Predictive analytics play a growing role here. By modeling historical claims data alongside behavioral indicators, organizations can identify early warning signs long before an injury escalates into a costly remote-work-era claim.

Beyond data, one of the clearest low-tech opportunities lies in ergonomics. Many employers no longer ensure that home workspaces meet basic ergonomic standards, often due to cost concerns or assumptions that employees will self-manage. In a remote-first environment, this allows everyday work habits to quietly accumulate into long-term strain and injury.

Regular check-ins, distinct from routine status meetings, can help surface issues before they escalate. Asking employees whether they have the tools they need to work comfortably, whether they are taking breaks, and whether their workload feels sustainable can provide valuable early signals.

Some organizations are experimenting with non-invasive monitoring tools that encourage healthy behavior, such as reminders to stand, stretch or step away after prolonged periods of inactivity. When implemented transparently and ethically, these basic techniques can support employee well-being without undermining trust.

The Mental Health Dimension

Physical strain is only part of the equation. Mental health has emerged as a critical and often underappreciated factor in remote work claims. Isolation, reduced social interaction, and the blurring of work-life boundaries contribute to stress and burnout, which in turn increase the likelihood of both physical and psychological claims.

Fully remote employees may be highly engaged with work, but their wellbeing tells a different story. Only 36% of remote employees report thriving overall, while 45% experienced significant stress the previous day—higher than their on-site counterparts. This combination of high work engagement and elevated stress levels creates a perfect storm for cumulative injuries, delayed reporting and claims escalation.

In-office environments once provided informal opportunities for connection and support. Remote work has largely replaced those interactions with scheduled video calls, which are not necessarily equivalent substitutes. Over time, the loss of casual engagement can exacerbate stress and reduce an employee’s willingness to speak up when something feels wrong.

For claims professionals, this means recognizing that mental strain often precedes physical injury. Proactive engagement, combined with data-driven insights, can help organizations address these risks earlier and more effectively.

New Risk-Assessment Framework

The future of risk assessment in hybrid work environments will not hinge on a single tool or policy. Instead, it will require a layered approach that combines:

• Digital validation tools to support fair and accurate claims investigation
• Claims data aggregation to identify recurring patterns and emerging risks
• Predictive analytics to flag long-tail cost drivers early
• Proactive employer engagement focused on ergonomics, workload, and well-being

As the boundaries between home and workplace continue to blur, insurers and claims teams must adapt their frameworks accordingly. Hybrid work is now the operating reality. And with it comes a new definition of workplace risk, one that demands smarter insights, earlier intervention, and a deeper understanding of how people actually work today.

Jackson is vice president of Sales at Ontellus and American Medical Forensic Specialists, where he leads national sales strategy across insurance, legal, employer, and healthcare markets. He has more than 35 years of experience in insurance and risk services.