The California Workers’ Compensation Institute has initiated a new series of research publications, “California Workers’ Compensation Industry Score Cards,” which use subsets of data from CWCI’s Industry Claims Information System (ICIS) database to measure various aspects of claims experience for specific industry sectors. Each Score Card will profile claimant characteristics and show distributions of claims and payments by diagnostic category and claim type (Medical-Only, Temporary Disability, Permanent Disablity, Death), attorney involvement rates, common “nature of injury” and “cause of injury” categories, as well as claim closure rates and medical and indemnity loss development at 12, 24 and 36 months post injury.

The first Score Card in the series, released this week, examines construction industry claims. While employment in the construction sector has taken a hit during the current recession, the Score Card notes that the construction industry still accounted for one out of every seven California job injury claims from 2001 through 2008, and these tended to be relatively expensive claims, accounting for 18.5 percent of total workers’ compensation payments over that span.

All of the Industry Score Cards along with a summary Bulletin will be available to CWCI members and research subscribers who log on to the Institute’s web site at www.cwci.org. Anyone wishing to subscribe to Institute Research and Bulletins may do so by visiting the Institute’s online Store. The next Score Card in the series, scheduled to be released next month, will examine claims from Professional/Clerical workers.