The COVID-19 pandemic has been with us for over nine months now, with no end in sight. During this time, we conducted several Out Front Ideas COVID-19 Briefing webinars and The Path Forward virtual conference.

These educational events were designed to provide risk managers and others in the industry with a better understanding of how COVID-19 was hitting our industry.

As more time passes, the impact on workers’ compensation is becoming more evident. However, we are still in the early stages of developing claims, and it will be some time before we have clarity on the full impact.

What has changed? Frankly, everything—how the industry handles claims, the types of claims submitted, how medical treatment is provided, staffing models, and the list goes on. Today’s workers’ compensation is different from what it was before the pandemic started, and it is not likely to revert to the exact model we had before March 2020.

First and foremost, the definition of a workers’ compensation claim has been fundamentally changed.