New data on injury under-reporting, claims suppression, and risk in small workplaces

Some new research updates have been published by the Institute for Work and Health. A study in BC looked at injury claiming behaviour. It found that approximately half of workers who have a work-related injury or illness that requires time away from work do not report the injury to the BC workers’ compensation system. Key explanations include workers not knowing they are entitled or how to apply or not thinking it is worth their time to do so. Further, between 4 and 13% of people with work-related injuries experience inducements or pressure from their employer not to report the injury.

You can read the full report here and a shorter policy briefing here. This table (nicked from the policy briefing) summarizes the recent evidence on underclaiming and suppression in workers' compensation claims.


The key take-aways are that there is pretty consistent evidence that only half of injured workers report injuries to the workers compensation system. That is to say, workers’ compensation data (which is basically what we use in Canada to assess injury rates and drive public policy) consistently and significantly under-estimates the true level of injury. Further, one of the factors that drives under-reporting by workers is employer claims suppression behaviour.

Interestingly, claim suppression is not the most common cause of under-reporting in the BC study. Workers not knowing to or how to report was a significant factor. This is followed by workers not thinking it was worth their while to do so (in part because some employers offer alternative forms of injury compensation).

A second study investigated the reasons underlying higher risk of injury to workers at small firms. The upshot of this study was that inadequate safety policies and procedures at smaller firms were the major source of higher injury rates. When this variable was controlled for, differences disappeared. This suggests that smaller workplaces are not intrinsically less safe and the greater risk of injury can be attenuated by improved organizational processes

-- Bob Barnetson