A report released this week by Travelers Cos. found that the overall number of workplace injuries is declining, but the costs resulting from those injuries is rising.

For its 2025 Injury Impact Report, the Hartford-based insurance company said it analyzed more than 2.6 million workers’ compensation claims submitted from 2015 to 2024. The intent was to “identify trends that have arisen in the five years since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic (2020-24),” and compare that with the five years leading up to 2020 (2015-19). 

“Over the past decade, we’ve seen three trends intensify: increasing retirement ages, ongoing employee turnover, and longer injury recovery times,” said Rich Ives, Travelers’ senior vice president of business insurance claims.

He continued, “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.”

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 14.3% from 1.4 million from 2015-19.

It also found that the average number of lost workdays increased to 80 lost workdays, an increase of more than seven days since the onset of the pandemic, as compared to the preceding five years. 

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, the report found.

The construction industry experienced the highest average number of days out of work, at 115 over the past five years, up by 14 days from the previous five years.

That industry’s compensation claims were also the most expensive, nearly double the average for all other industries combined, the report states.

The most expensive of the construction-related injuries were cardiovascular injuries, multiple traumas, electric shocks, dislocations, head traumas, crushing injuries and amputations, the report states.

Other industries also saw increases in the average number of days out of work. In the transportation industry, injured workers averaged 92 days out of work from 2019 through 2024, an increase of 12 days from the previous five years. The service industry averaged 78 days out of work (+8), while the wholesale industry averaged 76 days (+6), and manufacturing averaged 74 days (+7).  

The report also noted that there were many shifts in the workplace over the past 10 years, “including continued job churn during and after the pandemic.” That created a steady stream of new employees, who are among the most vulnerable to injury.

Employees in their first year on the job accounted for approximately 36% of injuries and 34% of overall claim costs during the past five years, the report states. That was an increase from the prior five years, when 34% of injuries and 32% of overall claim costs were attributed to new employees.

The report also noted that 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 said it 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, while those 60 and above represented 16%. This is up from 39% and 13%, respectively, when compared with data from 2015 through 2019. 

The trend is significant, Travelers said, because older employees — while typically injured less frequently than their younger counterparts — “tend to require longer recovery times and have more costly claims.”