U.S. Short-Term Disability (STD) and Sick Leave Cost Projections for Employee COVID-19 Cases - Executive Summary

The COVID-19 pandemic has sent a ripple of destruction on healthcare systems, businesses, and economies all over the globe. To help provide insights into the potential financial burden of COVID-19 for employers and suppliers, IBI reviewed employment, wage and leave benefit data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), and lost workday experiences contained in IBI’s dataset of employer-sponsored short-term disability (STD) claims to estimate the incidence and absence compensation for employees who take sick days or STD leaves for a coronavirus diagnoses. The analysis looks at what the incidence and compensation would be for low-, mid-, and high-range scenarios depending on the total COVID-19 cases across the country.