Fewer occupational accidents due to Corona

The pandemic year 2020 is having an impact on accident figures: Last year, insured persons reported around 430,000 accidents to Suva, 10.0 percent fewer than in the previous year. The number of occupational accidents fell by 9.8 percent and the number of leisure accidents by as much as 10.9 percent. In contrast, the number of accidents among people registered as unemployed increased by 4.9 percent. This is mainly due to the increase in the number of unemployed during the Corona pandemic.

Cases registered with Suva under compulsory accident insurance:

Lockdown in the spring reduced number of accidents

The number of accidents fell sharply, particularly during the lockdown from mid-March 2020. At times, Suva recorded almost half as many accidents as in the previous year. As the first wave of the pandemic subsided, accident figures in many places rose again to the previous year's level between July and September 2020. The second wave then led to a renewed decline in reported accidents from October 2020. By the end of the year, accident figures were well below the previous year's levels.

Less work - fewer occupational accidents

According to Suva, not all sectors insured by the company were affected to the same extent by the measures imposed. In many places, work was able to continue quite well despite restrictions. In other areas, work was greatly reduced, resulting in a correspondingly sharp drop in occupational accidents. The sharpest decline in occupational accidents was recorded in aviation (- 54 percent).

Limited leisure activities

The trend for leisure accidents is similar to that for occupational accidents. In March 2020, the ski resorts closed, which led to an early end of the ski season with a sudden drop in ski accidents (- 22 percent). Because football was no longer played for a long time, there was also a marked drop in football accidents over the year as a whole compared with the previous year (- 37 percent). The situation is similar for the other ball sports (- 32 percent) and ice hockey (- 42 percent).

Sharp increase in bicycle accidents

However, there were also leisure activities that were increasingly practiced during the pandemic and led to more accidents. Cycling was possible without restriction and was favored by frequently fine weather as early as April 2020. As a result, bicycle accidents increased by 21 percent compared to the previous year. Around half of this increase is probably due to an increased need for exercise. More leisure accidents also occurred during gardening (+ 15 percent) and DIY (+ 9 percent).

Costs declined less sharply than occupational accidents

Suva is a social insurance company and is therefore not profit-oriented. Financial surpluses benefit the insured in the form of lower premiums. The decline in accidents during the Corona pandemic should lead to surpluses in many sectors in the 2020 accounting year. Insured persons can therefore look forward to lower premiums in 2022.

However, initial analyses by Suva show that the medical costs and daily allowances of the accidents from 2020 have decreased less than the accident figures. No information can yet be provided on pension costs, as pensions are usually only awarded around three to five years after the accident. "The fact that medical costs and daily allowances have decreased less than the number of cases also means an increase in the average cost per case," explains Peter Andermatt, a statistician at Suva. "The cause of this increase cannot yet be clearly determined statistically. However, the main factors seem to be a stronger decline in minor cases, such as ball sports accidents, and an increase in the duration of daily allowances per case."

Source: Suva