New Hires Are Your Next Mod Problem: Travelers 2026 Injury Data
Travelers' 2026 data shows first-year employees produce 37% of injuries and 44% of construction injuries. For a $500K-payroll contractor, one $35K lost-time claim can move the mod 15 points and cost bid eligibility.
First-year employees account for 37% of all workplace injuries and 44% of construction injuries, despite representing a smaller share of total payroll (Travelers, 2026). For a contractor with $500,000 in payroll, a single $35,000 lost-time claim from a new hire can push the EMR from 0.95 to roughly 1.10, crossing the threshold many project owners use for bid eligibility.
The Travelers Companies released their 2026 Injury Impact Report in July, and the construction numbers are blunt. First-year employees produce 37% of all workplace injuries across industries and 34% of claim costs (Travelers, July 2026). In construction specifically, new hires account for 44% of injuries. That last figure is the one that should sit with every contractor CFO and safety director reading this.
The data tells you where your next mod problem is coming from. It is not your tenured crew. It is the person you brought on in the last quarter.
Why one new-hire claim moves the mod that much
A single lost-time claim at $35,000 sounds manageable in the context of a multi-million-dollar operation. On a mod worksheet, it is not manageable. It is a primary loss that gets loaded into your experience period for three years.
For a contractor with roughly $500,000 in annual payroll, the expected primary losses on the worksheet are modest. A $35,000 lost-time claim can represent a significant multiple of what NCCI expects from an account that size. The result is a mod that jumps from a clean 0.95 to something closer to 1.10, depending on the state-specific ballast values and the exact classification mix (NCCI Experience Rating Plan, 2026).
That 15-point swing is the difference between qualifying for bids and not. Many project owners, especially in public and commercial construction, set a hard mod threshold at 1.00. Some set it at 1.10. A contractor who was comfortably under the line one year can find themselves disqualified the next, not because their operation got riskier, but because one new hire filed one claim.
The three-year tail
The mod is a lagging indicator. A claim from July 2026 shows up on the worksheet used for your January 2027 renewal, then stays on the worksheet for the next two renewal cycles. That $35,000 claim does not age out until the 2029 renewal at the earliest (NCCI, 2026).
This is why the Travelers construction figure matters more than the all-industry average. Construction already carries some of the highest class codes in the NCCI system. A new-hire injury in construction tends to be more severe than in other sectors, which means the claim value rises faster and the reserve development is more aggressive. In our reviews of Southeast contractor worksheets, the claims that distort the mod most are not the frequent small ones. They are the single severe new-hire claims where reserves were set high early and never adjusted down.
What the data says about onboarding
Travelers reported that 34% of claim costs come from first-year employees (Travelers, July 2026). That cost concentration means the problem is not just frequency. New hires are getting hurt in ways that run up medical and indemnity spending, not just first-aid incidents.
The construction-specific 44% injury share suggests the gap between hiring and effective safety integration is wider in this sector than in others. Contractors who onboard through a brief orientation and put new hires on site the same week are absorbing the most claim exposure at the worst possible time in the employee lifecycle. The first 90 days are where the data says the risk lives.
The reserve problem underneath the claim
The claim itself is half the problem. The reserve the carrier sets on day one is the other half. A $35,000 paid claim and a $35,000 claim with a $75,000 reserve affect the mod differently. The reserve is what enters the worksheet during the experience period. If the carrier over-reserves early and the claim settles for less later, the worksheet still carries the inflated number until the reserve is adjusted, which can take months or a full renewal cycle.
This is where mod lag compounds the new-hire problem. The claim hits the worksheet before the claim is closed. The reserve is the number that drives the mod, not the eventual settlement. A new-hire claim with aggressive initial reserving can inflate the mod for an entire year before anyone catches it.
What an audit would check
An audit checks whether the claims on your worksheet match the carrier's current reserve values, whether classifications reflect the work new hires are actually performing, and whether any open claim from a recent hire is carrying a reserve that has drifted from the actual exposure. Most contractors we review have at least one open claim where the reserve no longer reflects reality. That gap is mod points you are paying for at renewal.
Send us your NCCI worksheet before your next renewal and we will review it at no cost.