When SB 171 rewrote the Subsequent Injuries Benefits Trust Fund this July, it didn’t come from nowhere. CHSWC’s 2025 annual report — the state’s own oversight commission, publishing the Division of Workers’ Compensation’s data — lays out the decade of numbers that produced the crackdown.
Total SIBTF costs ran $34.5 million in FY 2014-15. By FY 2024-25 they reached $446.9 million — roughly thirteen-fold in a decade, with benefits paid alone at $436.9 million in the final year. For scale, the report cites $8 million in FY 2003-04, the last year before the SB 899 reforms — then $121.5 million by FY 2020-21, and more than triple that four years later.
Cases opened went from 1,011 in FY 2014-15 to 5,378 in FY 2024-25 — including a 72% jump in the final year alone. Over the eleven years the report covers, 27,076 SIBTF cases were opened and only 6,751 — about a quarter — were closed. The money per case moved just as fast: the average amount paid per SIBTF claim rose from $13,699 to $80,814, nearly six-fold, while the number of claims paid grew 2.3 times.
Assessments on California employers — insured and self-insured — now supply over 99% of SIBTF revenue, per the report. Among the drivers it lists for the recent surge: benefits now start when the employer’s PD payments start, rather than waiting for permanent-and-stationary status, and SIBTF pays on top of the employer’s PD — dynamics the report links in part to the post-SB 899 apportionment rules (§§4663, 4664) that shrank employer-side awards while leaving combined disability intact.
Read against this curve, July’s rewrite is legible: SB 171 tightened the entry doors to WPI-after-apportionment percentages, locked proof to evidence that existed at the time of injury, and imposed the first hard filing deadline — the full breakdown. Whether a file clears the new doors is arithmetic you can run in the SIBTF calculator; the statutory framework, current to the new law, is in the SIBTF guide. Figures quoted from the CHSWC report linked below; descriptive summary, not legal advice.
Plain-language summary for informational use; not legal advice. Figures are quoted from the cited sources.