New-Hire Workers Drive 44% of Construction WC Claims
Travelers' 2026 report: 44% of construction WC injuries involve first-year workers. Those workers miss 114 days on average, the most of any industry. Both numbers sit directly on your mod worksheet.
Forty-four percent of construction workers' comp injuries involve employees in their first year on the job, according to Travelers' 2026 Injury Impact Report (analysis of 1.2 million indemnity claims, 2021-2025). Those workers miss 114 days on average when injured, more than any other industry. Both numbers feed directly into the experience modification rate calculation on your mod worksheet.
Your safety orientation doesn't happen until day one. The claim often doesn't wait.
Travelers released its 2026 Injury Impact Report in May, built from 1.2 million workers' compensation (WC) indemnity claims filed between 2021 and 2025. The construction finding is worth printing out: 44 percent of construction WC injuries involve employees in their first year on the job (Travelers, May 2026). First-year workers also drive 47 percent of construction compensation claim costs.
What "44 Percent" Actually Means
The Travelers data covers indemnity claims only. These aren't minor injuries that close in a day. Every claim in the dataset was serious enough that the worker couldn't immediately return to work and incurred measurable medical costs.
For a contractor managing payroll across multiple trades, the implication is direct. Nearly half the claims sitting on your experience modification rate (EMR, also called "the mod") worksheet are tied to workers in their first year. That's the population most likely to be unfamiliar with site-specific hazards, most likely to take shortcuts they haven't been warned about, and most likely to be underserved by safety programs built around experienced crews.
The 114-Day Problem
Construction workers who suffer a lost-time injury miss 114 days on average, more than any other industry in the Travelers study (Travelers, May 2026). Transportation workers miss 94 days. Manufacturing workers miss 76.
Those 114 days carry two separate costs. Medical treatment and indemnity payments build the claim dollar value. That value then flows into your experience rating under the NCCI (National Council on Compensation Insurance) formula, split between a primary layer and an excess layer. The primary layer is fully charged to your record; the excess is discounted. A claim with extended lost time concentrates cost in the primary layer, where it moves your mod the most.
A contractor in a high-hazard class code who absorbs one 114-day lost-time claim from a new hire is looking at primary exposure that can shift the mod 10 to 15 points depending on the state split point and payroll base. That's the EMR arithmetic of one claim that starts in the first week of employment.
First-Year Risk Isn't Random
The Travelers data doesn't explain why first-year workers are injured more. It documents that they are, across five years and 1.2 million claims. The consistent pattern across industries suggests it isn't explained by any single sector's conditions.
In construction, the risk factors compound. A new employee on a framing crew may have years of carpentry experience but no familiarity with this site's fall protection layout. A laborer starting at a concrete contractor may hold the right certifications but not know this employer's excavation protocols. Technical skill doesn't prevent the injury. Site-specific knowledge gaps do.
Those gaps show up in frequency. They also drive severity because workers who don't know where to report a near-miss often don't report it. The first incident they do report is frequently the serious one, and serious in construction means 114 days.
Where the Exposure Lives on Your Worksheet
The five-year span of the Travelers data rules out anomaly. This is structural. New construction workers are injured at higher rates, and their claims run longer when they are.
When you look at your mod worksheet, the claims inflating your experience aren't always the ones your safety director remembers. They're often claims on workers who were still getting oriented when the injury happened, filed under a class code that may or may not reflect the work they were actually doing, and carrying reserves that haven't been revisited since the claim opened.
What an Audit Would Check
An audit on a construction contractor's worksheet looks at the class codes on high-primary-value claims, whether the workers generating those claims were correctly classified for the work they were doing at the time of injury, and whether indemnity reserves reflect the actual return-to-work date or an initial estimate the carrier never updated. A 114-day lost-time claim that settled at day 60 but still carries full reserves inside your experience window costs you mod points for longer than the injury lasted. An audit identifies where those reserves haven't caught up with reality.
If you're in Southeast construction and your mod has moved in the past two years, send us your NCCI worksheet for a mod review and we'll show you what's driving it.