2018 Aon Public Transit Liability Benchmark Analysis

Nationwide, public transit systems are seeing an increase in liability claim severity according to the 2018 Aon Public Transit Liability Benchmark Analysis. The report, which examines ridership and liability claims for rail and bus transits, was released by Aon, the leading global professional services firm providing a broad range of risk, retirement and health solutions, in conjunction with the American Public Transportation Association (APTA).

While public transit liability claim severity is up two percent annually, claim frequency showed an increase of one percent annually. The report breaks down the data, finding that the frequency of bus claims is higher than that of rail claims, while the severity of rail claims is higher than that of bus claims. This is due in part to the fact that buses interact with pedestrians and other road traffic, leaving greater potential for incidents leading to liability claims. The study also found that vehicle on pedestrian claims account for three percent of claims, but nearly 30 percent of incurred loss dollars.

Methodology

Thirty-eight organizations, representing 116 individual transits across 16 states, Washington DC and Canada with approximately 1.8 billion rider trips each year, provided loss and exposure data for this study. The database of public transit liability claims contains approximately 70,000 non-zero claims from both auto liability and general liability lines, representing over $1.0 billion of incurred losses. The database contains historical claim information for accident years 2007 to 2017.

Click to download the Executive Summary (PDF) of the Public Transit Liability Benchmark Analysis