Workplace Injuries on Decline; Costs on the Rise: Travelers Injury Impact Report

The Travelers Companies, Inc. published its 2025 Injury Impact Report, which compared workers compensation data from the five years leading up to the COVID-19 pandemic with the next five years.

Analysis found that while the number of workplace injuries overall continues to decline, the costs associated with them are climbing.

“Over the past decade, we’ve seen three trends intensify: increasing retirement ages, ongoing employee turnover and longer injury recovery times,” says Rich Ives, SVP of business insurance claim at Travelers. “Our aim with this report is to provide employers with insights on these dynamics that are contributing to growing claim severity so they can better navigate these workforce challenges, protect their employees and keep their businesses running.”

Key takeaways:

·        The report found that the frequency of workplace injuries overall has declined over the past decade. Travelers examined 1.2 million workers compensation claims received during the past five years, down from 1.4 million from 2015-2019.

·        There were many shifts in the workplace over the last 10 years, including continued job churn during and after the pandemic. This created a steady stream of new employees, who are among the most vulnerable to injury.

·        The report found that employees in their first year on the job accounted for approximately 36% of injuries and 34% of overall claim costs during the last five years. This is an increase from the prior five years, when 34% of injuries and 32% of overall claim costs were attributed to new employees.

·        The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics projects that by 2033, approximately 24% of employees will be age 55 or older, up from 15% in 2003. Travelers has seen the volume of claims involving older employees rise in line with this shift.

·        During the past five years, employees aged 50 or older made up 41% of the injured employee population, and those 60 and above represented 16%. This is up from 39% and 13%, respectively, when compared with data from 2015 through 2019. This trend is significant because older employees – while typically injured less frequently than their younger counterparts – tend to require longer recovery times and have more costly claims.

·        From 2020-2024, employees missed an average of 80 workdays per injury, an increase of more than seven days when compared with the previous five-year period. Injured employees aged 60 and above were out of work due to workplace injuries for nearly 97 days, almost 17 more days than the overall average and an increase of 14 days from pre-pandemic years.