2025 MID-YEAR
Accommodations
Report Objectives
This report aims to summarize the present metrics for our disability programs, assess the landscape of disability claim administration and litigation, and benchmark our patterns against comparable industry research.
data parameters
Our practice team uses JURIS claims data to perform comparative analyses informed by their expertise and analytics. The data in this report is based on the first half of each year, January through June, for each reporting year.
Certain client data is excluded from book of business metrics to avoid overrepresentation of a single client.
Key observations
Overall, accommodation requests dipped marginally from mid-year 2024 to mid-year 2025. However, at-work requests continued to climb for the third straight year, driven largely by work from home (WFH) and other environmental modifications. Durations also increased across the board — regardless of sector or accommodation type.
1.3%
Decrease in new accommodation claims in FY 2025. Incident rates also declined, from 3 to 2.8 per 100 employees.
RETAIL & MANUFACTURING
Only major industry sectors to see an increase in accommodation request incident rates
Retail saw an increase from 5.1% to 5.5%, with at-work accommodations rising from 1.6 to 2. Manufacturing increased from 1.7% to 2%, with at-work accommodations growing from 0.4 to 0.6.
6%
Decrease in leave of absence accommodations compared to mid-year 2024
15%
Increase in at-work accommodation requests, marking a consistent upward trend seen over the last 3 years
Environmental modifications rose by 6% in mid-year 2025 compared to the prior year. While physical accommodations remained the most common at-work accommodation, they saw a 4% decrease in new volume year over year.
53.9%
Percentage of closed volume involving WFH accommodation claims in mid-year 2025 — a 12% increase from mid-year 2024
In finance, WFH closed claims increased by 38.2%. In services, WFH accommodations rose from 8% to 24% of closed volume. Age group analysis showed the 25–35 age group increasing by 22.4%, while other age groups saw slight declines.
18.2%
Increase in overall durations for approved closed accommodations, from 120.9 days in 2023 to 143 days in mid-year 2025
Durations for at-work accommodations increased by 28.5%, from 236.7 to 304.1 days. Continuous leave of absence durations rose by 5.3%, from 80 to 84.2 days. Intermittent LOA durations increased by 4.3%, from 18 to 18.8 days.
Finance, retail, healthcare, services & transportation
Industries that saw increases in duration
Healthcare had the most significant rise, from 147.6 to 263.5 days.
Environmental modifications, job aid & physical accommodations
All accommodation types experienced increased durations
Environmental modifications increased from 208.6 to 250.5 days. Job aid accommodations rose from 240.8 to 287.2 days. Physical accommodations increased from 193.4 to 268.7 days.
Download a summary slide with these key observations.
REPORT CONTENTS
New volumes
Transportation & healthcare
Manufacturing & retail
Manufacturing and retail continue to show increased accommodation requests year over year. We are seeing similar trends in disability. Transportation and healthcare showed the largest overall decreases — a significant shift for transportation, in particular, which saw a large increase in requests last year. We’ll be watching to see whether the sectors maintain this trend or if they return to 2024 levels before the end of the year.
Accommodation requests by type
While leave of absence remains the most common request for accommodation, at-work accommodations continue to grow across most sectors. Retail and manufacturing saw the most significant increases as hiring continues within those sectors. Transportation and healthcare saw the largest drops in at-work accommodations. Both sectors showed healthy increases in 2024, so this may be a mid-year dip before recovering in the second half of 2025.
When looking at the specific breakdown of at-work modifications, there was a 2% decrease in physical accommodations. We saw a slight increase in environmental accommodations, and a 100% increase in change-in-job-function accommodations. This can be attributed to more accommodations surrounding breaks, specifically with Pregnant Workers Fairness Act (PWFA) claims.
Environmental accommodations
Environmental accommodations increased from the prior year, with the most common request being the ability to work from home. We expect this will continue to rise as more employers transition from hybrid schedules to full return to office. Requests for seating accommodations showed a slight increase, again from the increase in return to office activity, but all other categories showed declines from 2024.
Job aid accommodations
Accommodations that dealt with non-traditional support tools represented the largest type of job aid accommodation. These can include job coaching, job shadowing, note takers, etc. The use of service animals doubled from 2024 and is up from 2023 levels. This is a trend that will be worth monitoring as service animals are increasingly being used to address anxiety and mental health issues.
Physical accommodations
While lifting continues to be the most common physical accommodation request, lifting accommodation levels have been decreasing since 2023. That can be attributed to the drop in overall accommodations and at-work accommodations for the transportation sector. Standing and sitting accommodation requests have continued to increase from 2023 levels.
WFH accommodations by age
Employees in the 25-35 age bracket showed the most significant increase in accommodation requests, going from 24.9% in 2024 to 30.5% in 2025. As progression through the age bands continues, requests for accommodations decrease, with the largest decrease in the 55+ age range. This correlates with an increase we’ve seen in long-term disability (LTD) claim requests for this age group, indicating that despite remaining in the workforce longer, claimants are either choosing LTD or do not need accommodation requests.
New accommodation requests by length of service
Similar to trends we saw in disability and leave requests, the impact of job realignments associated with the COVID pandemic has slowed significantly. Claimants with one to three years years of service saw a 5% drop in accommodation requests, while requests from employees with three to five years of service increased by 4%. We anticipate that accommodation requests will follow disability and leave requests in returning to a pre-COVID pattern in terms of length of service.
Accommodation durations
Accommodation durations increased in the first half of 2025 across industry sectors. This represents a rebound after some sectors decreased from 2023 to 2024. When looking at overall durations by accommodation type, the only type that showed a decrease from mid-year 2024 to mid-year 2025 was change in job function. Overall, employers are allowing more time for accommodations to be in place before either modifying or ending them.
Job aids and physical accommodations are approaching durations close to nine months, which marks a signficant increase in durations for both categories.
The gap between long- and short-term durations is narrowing, decreasing from 340% in 2024 to 305% in the first half of 2025. While still significant, this means that employers are starting to reconsider whether long-term arrangements are still reasonable. Based on the industry breakdown, there are similar trends with healthcare, services and retail continuing to show increases in long-term accommodation approvals.
Future considerations
Working from home
Before the pandemic, the consensus in the courts was that it was at the employer’s discretion to decide whether physical presence in the office was an essential function of most jobs and if remote work was a reasonable accommodation. Now, interactive dialogue is paramount. After more than four years of teleworking, there will be questions about why employees with a disability cannot continue remote work as an accommodation. To justify hardship, an employer should be prepared to prove that, although remote work was required during the shutdown, it was not effective (e.g., problems with technology, decreased productivity, lost sales, etc.).
Litigation trends
2024 saw a decrease in the number of lawsuits filed by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). Approximately 43% of the lawsuits alleged a violation of the ADA, and 2024 also saw the first-ever lawsuit for violations of the PWFA. 2025 and beyond may bring changes, as the current administration has shifted priorities regarding diversity, equity and inclusion, and has rolled back rules put in place by the previous administration.
As an example, federal regulators have paused enforcement of the 2024 final rules under the Mental Health Parity Addiction Equity Act (MHPAEA) — a federal law that prevents health plans from placing stricter limits on mental health and substance use disorder benefits than they do on medical or surgical benefits. We’re watching to see what impact this will have on the EEOC filings — given the volume of mental health claims in disability and workers’ compensation — and whether it will lead to increased accommodation requests. We’re already seeing an increase in service animal requests arising from anxiety-related conditions.
