Blog - Month: August 2026
The Health of Your Drivers May Be Hurting Your Business
Most goods in the U.S. are delivered by truck. Trucking companies, businesses that deliver their own product and their customers rely on well-functioning vehicles and drivers for the success of their operations.
Too often, though, driving a truck is not conducive to good health. That can spell trouble for the drivers and for the profitability of their employers.
There are a number of factors about the truck-driving occupation that contribute to poor physical health, including:
- Drivers are hired to sit all day behind the wheel, with limited opportunities for exercise.
- They eat at truck stops and other restaurants where they can get meals quickly, contributing to poor diets.
- Their work schedules are not consistent, interfering with sleep patterns.
- The job is stressful. They have to contend with the annoyances and hazards of the road all day long, including traffic delays, dangerous drivers, and poor weather. On top of that, they are under pressure to reach their destinations on time. This gives them incentives to skip on sleep and ingest stimulants to help them stay awake.
Not surprisingly, studies have found that:
- The obesity rate for truck drivers is double that of the general population.
- Their smoking rate is almost triple that of the general population.
- 88% of truck drivers report having hypertension, smoking or obesity, and 9% reported having all three, quadruple the general population’s rate.
- Truck drivers’ life expectancy is 16 years less than the national average.
- Unhealthy drivers do not perform their jobs as well as healthy ones do.
- Among private sector employees, truck drivers have the highest number of illnesses and injuries that cause them to miss work.
A 2017 study found that drivers with three or more serious health conditions like the ones mentioned above are two to four times more likely to have an accident than are those with only one.
One common affliction for many drivers is sleep apnea. Drivers who have untreated sleep apnea are five times more likely to have a preventable accident than are those who treat it.
What you can do
What can you as an employer do to maintain a healthy driving force? Plenty.
- During the pre-employment screening process, evaluate candidates’ fitness levels through physical examinations and a review of their driving histories.
- Review employer safety policies and driver wellness and fitness requirements during new employee orientation.
- Implement injury prevention programs.
- Offer free or discounted memberships at gyms with locations around the country.
- Encourage drivers to take quick exercise breaks during trips.
- Encourage healthy eating both at home and on the road.
- Monitor drivers’ performance through data provided by telematics devices installed in trucks, review of accident reports, and in-person observation of drivers.
The takeaway
If a truck driver suffers a heart attack or dozes off while hauling a load weighing tens of thousands of pounds, the results can be catastrophic. In addition to the lives lost or forever changed, the cost to the employer could be millions of dollars in jury awards.
Making driver wellness a priority is the right thing to do, but it also makes business sense for employers.
The Importance of Employment Practices Liability Coverage
Every employer, no matter how small, faces the specter of being sued by a past, present or prospective employee at some time.
In fact, such employment practices claims are widespread. Nearly three-quarters of all litigation against corporations today involves employment disputes. The cost associated with an employment practices claim can be significant.
In fiscal year 2025, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission secure nearly $660 million million in total monetary relief for 17,680 victims of workplace discrimination.
This included a historic $528 million recovered through pre-litigation processes (processes, such as mediation and conciliation).In addition, the EEOC recovered over $5.4 million across 26 sexual harassment suits in FY 2025.
Keep in mind, the above are just penalties and do not include defense costs, which can exceed $100,000 per claim for employers. Also, many cases never make it to the EEOC and are handled by private parties suing their employers.
For these reasons and more, employment practices liability insurance is crucial for any employer. The risks of being sued by an employee for discrimination or harassment have increased substantially since the #MeToo era.
EPLI coverage
Employers need EPLI coverage because comprehensive general liability policies and workers’ comp policies exclude employment-related claims.
Policies may cover (up to policy limits):
- Defense costs (court fees, attorney fees and related costs).
- Payment of settlements and/or judgments.
- Fines or penalties levied by government agencies.
EPLI policies cover business owners as well as directors, officers and managers. Some policies also cover employees. Additionally, you can buy third-party policies to cover claims brought by non-employees, such as clients.
Types of action covered include:
- Discrimination based on gender, race, national origin, religion, disability or sexual orientation
- Sexual harassment or other unlawful harassment in the workplace
- Wrongful termination
- Failure to employ or promote
- Retaliation
- Employment-related misrepresentation
- Failure to adopt adequate workplace or employment policies and procedures
- Employment-related defamation or invasion of privacy
- Negligent evaluation of an employee
- Wrongful discipline of an employee
- Employment-related infliction of emotional distress.
NOTE: Wage and hour claims, or disputes regarding overtime pay for non-exempt employees, have become more expensive in recent years, so most EPLI policies exclude this coverage. Business owners may be able to find endorsements to add wage and hour coverage.
Costs
EPLI claims can be extremely expensive. The average cost of a discrimination claim is $125,000, and 25% of judgments exceed $500,000.
Most businesses are wise to have at least $1 million in coverage. However, higher coverage limits increase your premium cost, so you want to balance your coverage needs and your budgetary concerns.
Call us if you want further information or need help in gauging your EPLI coverage needs.
Changes Coming to Dual-Wage Class Codes
California Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara has approved all of the Workers’ Compensation Insurance Rating Bureau’s recommended changes to the wage thresholds for construction industry dual classifications for policies incepting on or after Sept. 1.
The thresholds separate high- and low-wage earners in 16 dual-wage construction classes because higher wage workers in these class codes have historically had drastically fewer and less costly claims than their lower-paid counterparts.
Rates for lower-wage workers can sometimes be twice as high as the rates for higher-wage workers.
Here are the new thresholds:
| Classification | Current Threshold | Threshold Starting 9/1 |
|---|---|---|
| 5207/5028 – Masonry | $35 | $37 |
| 5190/5140 – Electrical Wiring | $36 | $40 |
| 5183/5187 – Plumbing | $32 | $35 |
| 5185/5186 – Automatic Sprinkler Installation | $33 | $36 |
| 5201/5205 – Concrete or Cement Work | $33 | $36 |
| 5403/5432 – Carpentry | $41 | $46 |
| 5446/5447 – Wallboard Installation | $41 | $45 |
| 5467/5470 – Glaziers | $39 | $43 |
| 5474/5482 – Painting/Waterproofing | $32 | $36 |
| 5484/5485 – Plastering or Stucco Work | $38 | $42 |
| 5538/5542 – Sheet Metal Work | $33 | $37 |
| 5552/5553 – Roofing | $31 | $33 |
| 5632/5633 – Steel Framing | $41 | $46 |
| 6218/6220 – Excavation/Grading/Land Leveling | $40 | $45 |
| 6307/6308 – Sewer Construction | $40 | $45 |
| 6315/6316 – Water/Gas Mains | $40 | $45 |
Insurance Commissioner Approves Workers’ Comp Rate Hike
California Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara has ordered an average 6.6% increase in the advisory workers’ compensation benchmark rate for policies incepting on or after Sept. 1, 2026, marking the second consecutive increase after more than a decade of declining rates.
The rate follows two years of increasing claim and claims adjustment costs, a substantial uptick in cumulative trauma claims and rising medical and administrative costs. The Workers’ Compensation Insurance Rating Bureau (WCRIB) had recommended a 10.4% increase in the average “pure premium” rate.
The pure premium rate is a benchmark insurers use to price policies. It accounts only for the cost of claims and adjusting them, not expenses such as office operations, personnel costs unrelated to claims, marketing or other overhead. Insurers are free to price their policies as they see fit and workers’ compensation rates are still at their lowest level in decades.
The rate increase will bring the average pure premium to $1.65 per $100 of payroll across all class codes. However, insurers are still charging less than that in their full rates, meaning they may not be taking in enough to cover claims costs.
In 2025, collected premiums resulted in an average charged rate of $1.56, down slightly from $1.58 in 2024 and continuing the overall downward trend in market rates that has persisted since the first half of 2015.
Last year, the insurance commissioner approved an 8.7% rate hike, below the 11.2% sought by the Rating Bureau.
The Rating Bureau cited the following to support its rate increase recommendation:
Cumulative trauma claims
WCIRB estimates that 26.4% of all workers’ comp claims filed in the state in 2025 involved cumulative trauma injuries, compared with 15% in 2021. CT claims are not for sudden injuries but rather those that develop over time through repetitive motion, such as:
- Carpal tunnel syndrome — Often claimed by office workers, data entry personnel and assembly line workers due to repetitive hand and wrist movements.
- Chronic back and neck injuries — Caused by years of lifting, bending, twisting or maintaining poor posture.
- Tendonitis and tendon disorders — Inflammation from repetitive shoulder or arm movements, common in construction, warehouse and food service jobs.
- Shoulder injuries — Rotator cuff tears or bursitis from repetitive overhead lifting.
- Knee problems — Develops from repetitive kneeling, squatting or climbing stairs, frequently seen in plumbers or floor layers.
About three in five CT claims are filed after an employee is terminated, according to WCIRB. A cottage industry of lawyers seeks out recently laid-off workers and persuades them to file these claims. Adding to the cost, nearly all CT claims are litigated, in most cases from the first notice.
Medical costs
One anomaly in CT claims is that they usually incur few medical costs in the first year, which masks the growing issue of rising medical costs for workers’ comp claims. According to WCIRB, average medical costs per claim increased 1.7% between 2021 and 2023, but the increase was 3% when CT claims were excluded.
Associated medical-legal costs per claim rose 14% in 2025, while costs for medical equipment and other medical services increased 7% in the same period.
Claims adjusting costs
The high litigation rates for CT claims are seeping into the cost of adjusting claims, according to WCIRB. It projects that insurers’ loss adjustment expense ratio (the cost of adjusting claims) will increase to 37.7% of claims costs from 35.7% in the Sept. 1, 2025, filing.
Claims adjusting costs are expected to rise 5.5% annually between 2026 and 2028.
The takeaway
While the pure premium rate is rising, employers may see increases or reductions of varying degrees based on several factors, including:
- The employer’s individual claims history,
- The employer’s industry,
- The mix of employees and operations, and
- The employer’s location.
If you have questions about your workers’ comp coverage, please give us a call.