This study can help policymakers and other stakeholders interested in the Wisconsin workers’ compensation system identify current cost drivers and emerging trends in a wide variety of workers’ compensation cost components.

It compares Wisconsin’s performance  with 17 other states (Arkansas, California, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Texas, and Virginia), focusing on income benefits, overall medical payments, costs, use of benefits, duration of disability, litigiousness, benefit delivery expenses, timeliness of payment, permanent partial disability, temporary total disability and other metrics.

The study examines how these system performance metrics have changed, mainly from 2010 to 2015, for claims at various maturities. Claims with experience through 2016 for injuries up to and including 2015 were analyzed. In some cases, a longer time frame was used to supply a historical context for key metrics. Information from other WCRI benchmarking studies was also included to provide a more complete picture of the system in Wisconsin. 

CompScope™ Benchmarks for Wisconsin, 17th Edition. Sharon E. Belton. April 2017. WC-17-16.

Copyright: WCRI