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DLI says telecommunicators file few indemnity claims but mental‑health claims stand out
Summary
The Department of Labor and Industry presented claims data showing telecommunicators and probation officers have far fewer accepted indemnity claims than corrections staff; telecommunicators show a notable share of mental‑disorder and PTSD claims and higher median weeks of indemnity when paid.
Brian Zademan of the Minnesota Department of Labor and Industry presented non‑COVID workers’ compensation data to the Legislative Commission on Pensions and Retirement, emphasizing that the DLI claims database records only accepted claims with more than three days of work disability.
"Insurers and self‑insured employers are required to report claims with more than 3 days of work disability," Zademan said, explaining the dataset excludes short‑duration claims that are not reportable. He said the presentation removed the COVID period (2020–2023) to focus on ongoing patterns.
Key findings: telecommunicators and probation officers generated far fewer accepted indemnity claims in the most recent multi‑year windows than corrections or other local government workers. Zademan gave rates per thousand workers: about 0.7 accepted claims per 1,000 telecommunicators versus about 3.8 per 1,000 probation officers. Telecommunicators also had a higher share of mental‑health diagnoses among accepted claims (mental disorders / PTSD), and a greater proportion of telecommunicator claims were resolved through settlements rather than ongoing weekly indemnity payments.
On durations and settlements: DLI showed the median weeks of temporary total disability for telecommunicators were higher than for probation officers, though the sample sizes were small (tens of claims over multi‑year periods). Among closed non‑COVID claims, the majority were short (median roughly six weeks for telecommunicators in the closed claim set), but a small number of long‑duration claims drove higher averages. Zademan highlighted that in a recent PTSD study DLI completed (2014–2023) telecommunicators had 15 PTSD claims and 11 paid under presumption rules; telecommunicators are covered by the PTSD presumption beginning in 2019 while probation officers are not.
What the data do and do not show: Zademan cautioned that counts are small for telecommunicators and probation officers relative to other public safety groups and therefore year‑to‑year variability is large; he suggested the commission and staff use the DLI spreadsheets and consider other administrative datasets for more precise classification and denominator information.
Next steps: commissioners asked staff to coordinate with DLI and the Department of Employment and Economic Development for workforce denominators and for the commission to consider these patterns when assessing disability assumptions for any new plan.
