Costs for Department of the Navy Civilians Due to the Federal EmployeesCompensation Act: How Much Does a Case Cost

摘要

Costs to the Department of the Navy for occupational mishaps suffered by itscivilian employees have been rising for more than a decade. This trend has prompted concern, yet fundamental information about the underlying nature of these costs has been missing. For instance, the average cost of a workers' compensation cost is not known. This paper describes the use of actuarial accounting methods to determine the average cost of a workers' compensation case among the Department's civilian employees originally injured in 1990. Included are projections of all costs that will accrue from these injuries for 32 years into the future. Additionally, a classification scheme is developed which uses information available at or near the time of injury to project the average costs for five different categories of injury or illness. Results indicate that costs projected to accrue for those injuries and illnesses newly occurring in 1990 will exceed $391 million. The average cost of a new mishap that year is projected to be $18,632-an amount nearly twice the highest estimate previously available using the government's conventional accounting methods. Average costs for individual categories of mishap ranged from $2,406 for an injury with no lost time to $166,716 for injuries involving more than 45 days of lost time. Implications of these findings are discussed.