This study helps policymakers and other system stakeholders in Minnesota identify current cost drivers and emerging trends in indemnity benefits, medical payments, and benefit delivery expenses. The study compares the performance of state workers’ compensation systems in Minnesota and 16 other states, focusing on income benefits, overall medical payments, use of benefits, duration of temporary disability, frequency and payments of permanent partial disability (PPD)/lump-sum claims, benefit delivery expenses, litigiousness, timeliness of payments, and other metrics. The study also examines how these metrics have changed, mainly from 2016 to 2021, for claims at various maturities. In some cases, we use a longer time frame to supply historical context. 

Note that the results we report reflect experience on claims through March 2022, including non-COVID-19 claims only from the first and second years of the COVID-19 pandemic (March 2020 through September 2021). The study, therefore, provides a look at how the pandemic impacted non-COVID-19 workers’ compensation claims in the first two years of the pandemic.  

CompScope™ Benchmarks for Minnesota, 23rd Edition. Rebecca Yang. April 2023. WC-23-08.

Copyright: WCRI