Indemnity, or lost time payments, averaged $804 in 2008, which was 5.7 percent more than the year before and 10 percent more than the low of $731 in 2006.

Data for public-sector employers that self insure, such as the cities of Sacramento and Roseville and the Elk Grove Unified School District, is available only through the first half of 2008. But those results show that the average amounts paid also are rising for public-sector employers that self insure, CWCI noted. Kelly Johnson