Jayne Kresac National -The National Council on Compensation Insurance (NCCI) released its 2020 State of the Line Report last week. In its findings, NCCI showed that net written premiums dropped 10% in large part due to the pandemic recession. It also found that nonCOVID claims dropped 7%, and carriers reported $260 million total COVID-19 incurred losses. Nursing homes, hospitals, clinics, other healthcare settings, and first responders accounted for 75% of COVID claims. The most severe 1% of COVID claims made up 60% of COVID loss dollars. The average severity of COVID claims was around $6,000 out of 45,000 claims. Despite the effects of COVID, “the workers' compensation system has been strong and resilient,” according to NCCI Chief Actuary Donna Glenn, as reserve redundancy numbers remain robust. Data released by Sedgwick showed that healthcare workers were heavily responsible for the uptick in increased mental health claims. In 2020, mental health claims rose by an overall 2.4%, with a near 45% increase in claims by healthcare workers compared to 2019. The anxiety incidence rate among healthcare workers rose nearly 70% in 2020, which Sedgwick labeled as an apparent “red flag.” Across all work sectors, anxiety claims rose at around 20% and accounted for nearly half of all mental health claims in 2020. According to Sedgwick's Andy Berg, these claims “remain a larger portion of mental health claims than they ever have before.” Some economic sectors experienced higher anxiety claims than others, with manufacturing seeing a yearly increase of 17%, 20% in retail, and nearly 18% in the financial services sector. Since the beginning of the pandemic, roughly 40% of U.S. adults have reported some symptoms of anxiety or depression compared to just 10% in the first half of 2019. The increases were most significant in the 18-29 age bracket and those with less than a high school education. The data comes from 600,000 claims from Sedgwick's 2020 book of business, of which 10% accounted for mental health-related claims.