“You have to put numbers in perspective, WCB right now processes approximately 300 000 claims every year. Approximately 90% of those are accepted so 10% are rejected. Of those accepted only .01 of a percent actually are appealed. So if you look at statistically at the track record and when you look at their client satisfaction levels they’re actually pretty good.”- Thomas Lukaszuk
I am concerned with the somewhat skewed statistics that the Alberta WCB presents to the media, and consequently the public, in an attempt to hide the truth. Inflating the number of claims processed annually is a blatant attempt to exaggerate the workload of the Alberta WCB and downplay the impact of appeals on the system.
Mr. Lukaszuk has overshot how many claims are denied and there are actually fewer being denied each year then he reported. However, he was incorrect in the number of claims administered by the WCB each year and in some cases over exaggerated this number by more than 87 000 claims.
In fact new claims reported have been decreasing over the past several years from 167 896 in 2008 to 140 198 in 2009 and 135 024 in 2010. Overall, claims are down even though unemployment rates have gone down and employment rates in Alberta have increased since 2009. Over this past year Alberta has had employment growth above the national average at 4.2% (+86 000) and the number of claims reported has dropped even further. This could mean fewer accidents, although in the past higher employment rates signalled more accidents (even as reported in WCB’s 2006 Report). This could also be connected to fewer individuals being covered by the WCB whether it be from employers neglecting to provide their employees with coverage or more exempt industries. It would be interesting to see what truly interacts with these statistics to affect them.
Please note that this statistic states the number of claims “reported”. This decrease may signal that workers that are injured in the course of employment do not always report the injury whether it is from peer pressure from employers not to do so or from ignorance to the injury and working through it fearing for their jobs and livelihoods. Employers receive lower premiums with lower accident rates, a poor performance surcharge if they have too many accidents, and they may even be entitled to receive money back if they are able to avoid injuries in the workplace. This type of reinforcement unfortunately may persuade some employers to hide accident rates and encourage employees to not report injuries. For example, employer premiums have dropped 7.6% to $1.22 per $100 of insurable earnings and employer partners and COR participants have increased so that they may be entitled to lower WCB charges. This seems obvious that of course employer satisfaction remains stable at 85% + since 1999 because they received $1.4 billion back- employers are happy and of course they may try to lie about accidents to ensure they receive this status and the premiums associated with it.
WCB statistics from 2002 to 2006 show a general increase in claims administered each year. Please note that in September 2006 Stats Canada reported that Alberta was in the midst of the strongest period of growth economically ever recorded by any Canadian province. As a result of this unprecedented boom, Alberta had the highest share of its population employed and the lowest unemployment rate of any province or state in North America. Overall there was a 12.7% average annual growth of Alberta since 2002 and profits in Alberta more than doubled from 2002 ($23.5 billion) to 2005 ($53.1 billion). So of course during this period of economic growth the number of claims was increasing as can be expected (there were more people working and inevitably more injuries especially being that Alberta hosts some of the most dangerous jobs in its gas and oil industry).
Although over 90% of claims have been accepted over the past three years, it still means that over 11 000 people are having their claims denied each year possibly leaving them hopeless and with no other means to fair entitlement. Add to this that one of the top five issues of appeal is the acceptability of the claim so people do feel as though their claim is legitimate. Furthermore, ineligible lost time claims continue to rise from 2008 where it was at 7.5%, 2009 at 8.4 %, and 2010 at 9.6%. More and more severe claims are being denied. Is this appropriate or a cost saving scheme?
The number of recurrent claims have gone from 16 696 in 2008 almost doubling to 34 758 in 2009 then it dropped to 24 283 in 2010. Although there has been a decrease from 2009 to 2010 this is still a high number and an overall increase from 2008. This would lead me to suspect that the push for workers’ to return to work so soon is causing recurrent injuries and this even if it is down 30% one year this is still a large number.
Here is another interesting statistic: The severity rate of injuries is going up which would usually mean more time for the injury to heal itself but the claim duration time continues to decrease. This supports the hypothesis that the Alberta WCB is rushing injured claimants to return to work. Using the disabling injury rate to assess severity of injuries may be deceiving because it adds time lost claims to the claims of those that return to modified work- it is the possibility of being a lost time claim. Having less modified returns to work then may decrease this number. Lost time claims alone are still not a perfect measure of severity of injury because this could mean a claim that was off for just several days.
Additionally, not only has employment within the health care and social assistance fields increased by 2.9% over the past year (continuing on a long term upward trend), social assistance has increased in millions by $3167 in 2004 to $4201 in 2008 and continues to do so. Social assistance income maintenance has also increased from $6 788 000 in 2004 to $7 821 000 in 2008. According to Statistics Canada more recently, the number of Albertans living below the Market Basket Measure of Low Income increased from 210,000 in 2008 to 353,000 in 2009, a 68% increase. This does not necessarily translate to the WCB since WCB benefits have increased as well from 2004 to 2008 from $5 083 000 to $5 749 000. However it does say more and more people are relying on social services and this correlates with the fact that there are less claims per year over the past several years and more claims being denied recently.
WCB also reports that worker satisfaction has been mostly stable at 75% since 1999. What is the population that has been surveyed? Injured workers that are in rehabilitation or have open claims are not surveyed- only closed claims receive the questionnaires. Those individuals with closed claims are probably happier than the ones still dealing with WCB. These are also most likely claimants that do not have lost time claims and rather have easily resolved claims and no outstanding issues with the WCB. The total population of workers with claims is not analyzed. There are also many claimants who receive these surveys and either do not answer them or answer them in a favourable manner to avoid any problems with the WCB. Many workers fear the WCB and do not rate them poorly so they do not get cut off. These factors make the surveys and client satisfaction rates very inaccurate.
I am concerned with the somewhat skewed statistics that the Alberta WCB presents to the media, and consequently the public, in an attempt to hide the truth. Inflating the number of claims processed annually is a blatant attempt to exaggerate the workload of the Alberta WCB and downplay the impact of appeals on the system.
Mr. Lukaszuk has overshot how many claims are denied and there are actually fewer being denied each year then he reported. However, he was incorrect in the number of claims administered by the WCB each year and in some cases over exaggerated this number by more than 87 000 claims.
In fact new claims reported have been decreasing over the past several years from 167 896 in 2008 to 140 198 in 2009 and 135 024 in 2010. Overall, claims are down even though unemployment rates have gone down and employment rates in Alberta have increased since 2009. Over this past year Alberta has had employment growth above the national average at 4.2% (+86 000) and the number of claims reported has dropped even further. This could mean fewer accidents, although in the past higher employment rates signalled more accidents (even as reported in WCB’s 2006 Report). This could also be connected to fewer individuals being covered by the WCB whether it be from employers neglecting to provide their employees with coverage or more exempt industries. It would be interesting to see what truly interacts with these statistics to affect them.
Please note that this statistic states the number of claims “reported”. This decrease may signal that workers that are injured in the course of employment do not always report the injury whether it is from peer pressure from employers not to do so or from ignorance to the injury and working through it fearing for their jobs and livelihoods. Employers receive lower premiums with lower accident rates, a poor performance surcharge if they have too many accidents, and they may even be entitled to receive money back if they are able to avoid injuries in the workplace. This type of reinforcement unfortunately may persuade some employers to hide accident rates and encourage employees to not report injuries. For example, employer premiums have dropped 7.6% to $1.22 per $100 of insurable earnings and employer partners and COR participants have increased so that they may be entitled to lower WCB charges. This seems obvious that of course employer satisfaction remains stable at 85% + since 1999 because they received $1.4 billion back- employers are happy and of course they may try to lie about accidents to ensure they receive this status and the premiums associated with it.
WCB statistics from 2002 to 2006 show a general increase in claims administered each year. Please note that in September 2006 Stats Canada reported that Alberta was in the midst of the strongest period of growth economically ever recorded by any Canadian province. As a result of this unprecedented boom, Alberta had the highest share of its population employed and the lowest unemployment rate of any province or state in North America. Overall there was a 12.7% average annual growth of Alberta since 2002 and profits in Alberta more than doubled from 2002 ($23.5 billion) to 2005 ($53.1 billion). So of course during this period of economic growth the number of claims was increasing as can be expected (there were more people working and inevitably more injuries especially being that Alberta hosts some of the most dangerous jobs in its gas and oil industry).
Although over 90% of claims have been accepted over the past three years, it still means that over 11 000 people are having their claims denied each year possibly leaving them hopeless and with no other means to fair entitlement. Add to this that one of the top five issues of appeal is the acceptability of the claim so people do feel as though their claim is legitimate. Furthermore, ineligible lost time claims continue to rise from 2008 where it was at 7.5%, 2009 at 8.4 %, and 2010 at 9.6%. More and more severe claims are being denied. Is this appropriate or a cost saving scheme?
The number of recurrent claims have gone from 16 696 in 2008 almost doubling to 34 758 in 2009 then it dropped to 24 283 in 2010. Although there has been a decrease from 2009 to 2010 this is still a high number and an overall increase from 2008. This would lead me to suspect that the push for workers’ to return to work so soon is causing recurrent injuries and this even if it is down 30% one year this is still a large number.
Here is another interesting statistic: The severity rate of injuries is going up which would usually mean more time for the injury to heal itself but the claim duration time continues to decrease. This supports the hypothesis that the Alberta WCB is rushing injured claimants to return to work. Using the disabling injury rate to assess severity of injuries may be deceiving because it adds time lost claims to the claims of those that return to modified work- it is the possibility of being a lost time claim. Having less modified returns to work then may decrease this number. Lost time claims alone are still not a perfect measure of severity of injury because this could mean a claim that was off for just several days.
Additionally, not only has employment within the health care and social assistance fields increased by 2.9% over the past year (continuing on a long term upward trend), social assistance has increased in millions by $3167 in 2004 to $4201 in 2008 and continues to do so. Social assistance income maintenance has also increased from $6 788 000 in 2004 to $7 821 000 in 2008. According to Statistics Canada more recently, the number of Albertans living below the Market Basket Measure of Low Income increased from 210,000 in 2008 to 353,000 in 2009, a 68% increase. This does not necessarily translate to the WCB since WCB benefits have increased as well from 2004 to 2008 from $5 083 000 to $5 749 000. However it does say more and more people are relying on social services and this correlates with the fact that there are less claims per year over the past several years and more claims being denied recently.
WCB also reports that worker satisfaction has been mostly stable at 75% since 1999. What is the population that has been surveyed? Injured workers that are in rehabilitation or have open claims are not surveyed- only closed claims receive the questionnaires. Those individuals with closed claims are probably happier than the ones still dealing with WCB. These are also most likely claimants that do not have lost time claims and rather have easily resolved claims and no outstanding issues with the WCB. The total population of workers with claims is not analyzed. There are also many claimants who receive these surveys and either do not answer them or answer them in a favourable manner to avoid any problems with the WCB. Many workers fear the WCB and do not rate them poorly so they do not get cut off. These factors make the surveys and client satisfaction rates very inaccurate.
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