Incapacity for Work Due to Disease or Injury in the Czech Republic

Introductory note

Contents

As the result of processing the report Nem Úr 1-02 show, considerable changes in the development of sickness and accidents rates occurred in 2004, in comparison to 2003.

Under stagnating number of insured persons, new notified cases of incapacity for work in total (i.e. due to disease plus accidents at work and other accidents) per 100 insured persons went significantly down from 81.66 to 61.64 (-24.5% y-o-y).

As the decrease in the number of days lost (index 85.3) was lower than the fall in the number of new notified cases (index 74.7), the average number of days lost per case of incapacity grew from 30.45 in 2003 to 34.77 in 2004.

In consequence of the above-mentioned changes, the average percentage of incapacity for work expressed by the overall indicator of sickness and accident rates fell from 6.814 to 5.857 y-o-y, i.e. by nearly one percentage point (index 86.0).

It is apparent that the development of sickness and accident rates in 2004 was affected inter alia by amendment to Act No 54/1956 Coll., on health insurance (in effect since 1 January 2004), which brought a significant change in the calculation of sickness benefits. For example, the rate on which calculation of the daily benefit for the first 3 days of incapacity is based, was cut by half, i.e. from 50% to 25%; further, only 90% instead of 100% of the daily basis of assessment are included up to the level of the 1st reduction limit for the first 14 days of incapacity.

As a result, particularly numbers of new notified cases of short-term incapacity for work dropped and the share of cases of long-term incapacity increased.