This 21st edition CompScope™ report benchmarks the performance of state workers’ compensation systems in 18 states, focusing on indemnity benefits, overall medical payments, duration of temporary disability, litigiousness, benefit delivery expenses, timeliness of payments, and other metrics.

The summary of major findings and supporting slides compare selected costs for New Jersey with those in other study states and lists possible factors that affect New Jersey’s results on those metrics. We also look at changes in key cost components in New Jersey from 2014 to 2019 (evaluated in 2020) to show recent and emerging trends. In some cases, we used a longer time frame to supply historical context for key metrics and to provide a broader context for monitoring changes in New Jersey’s system performance.

Note that the results we report include experience on claims through March 2020, at the very beginning of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. The study, therefore, provides a pre-COVID-19 baseline for evaluating the impact of the virus on workers’ compensation claims.                                                                                                       

CompScope™ Benchmarks for New Jersey, 21st Edition. Evelina Radeva. April 2021. WC-21-11.