Disability Claims Declined during Recession

The Employer Measure of Productivity, Absence and Quality (EMPAQ) annual survey found that the incidence for short-term disability (STD) claims declined 17.3% from 8.1 claims per 100 covered employees in 2008 to 6.7 claims per 100 covered employees in 2009. Long-term disability (LTD) claims dropped 26% from 4.6 claims per 1,000 employees in 2008 to 3.4 in 2009.   

A press release said the EMPAQ survey also found that STD costs declined 15.9% from $343 per employee in 2008 to $296 per employee in 2009.  LTD costs, however, jumped by more than 25% from $10,507 per claim in 2008 to $13,226 per claim in 2009.    

Survey respondents reported a median annual incidence for Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) claims of 14.9 per 100 covered employees in 2009, an increase from 12.5 in 2008.  The report noted that for a large employer, an increase in the number of FMLA claims from one year to the next can have a substantial impact on productivity and its bottom line, something particularly hard to absorb in a down economy.     

The incidence of workers’ compensation claims declined to 2.6 per 100 employees in 2009 compared to 3.7 in 2008.