While a Work-Injury Claim Waits, Nothing Bridges the Bereaved — Six-Month-Plus Backlog Doubled to 2,329 in Five Years

"Seven Years" Is Not an Average

There was a report that a work-injury claim took "seven years" to certify. But the figure misleads. The reported case was an individual worst case: a worker who died by overwork suicide in 2018, whose family filed a work-injury claim in 2019, passed through the administration's denial and the dismissal of their review request, sued in 2024, and were finally certified by the Tokyo District Court in 2026 — some seven years in all, across administration and courts. The state's rough operational guide is about four months for death and bereaved compensation claims. "Seven years" is not the average.

2,329 Cases Undecided Past Six Months

Still, cases that drag past the guide are indeed rising. Claims still undecided more than six months after filing number 2,329[1], nearly double the 1,169 of 2021 over five years, and have stayed above 2,000 since 2023.

Claims Doubled; Inspectors Rose 3.4%

Behind this is a surge in claims. Claims for "death from overwork and the like," karoshi and overwork suicide, reached 6,212 in FY2025[2], more than double the 2,835 of FY2020[3]. For mental disorders alone, FY2025 certifications came to 1,082, a certification rate of 28.2%[4] (the rate is the share of decisions that grant, not the share of claims filed). Meanwhile the labor inspectors who handle the reviews number 3,122[5], and even the FY2026 quota of 3,145 is up just 3.4% in five years[6]. Claims doubled; the hands barely grew. The wait for certification has, if anything, lengthened.

What Is Rising Is Claims for Mental Illness

The doubling is lopsided. In FY2025, claims for cerebrovascular and heart disease came to 1,254[7], while claims for mental illness reached 4,958, up 1,178 on the year[8]. In decisions to pay, cerebrovascular and heart disease came to 217, down 24 on the year[8], while mental illness came to 1,082. By count, what now arrives at the work-injury counter is mainly illness of the mind.

What Gets Certified Is Not Always a Long-Hours Case

And work-injury claims for mental illness cannot be explained by hours alone. Sort decisions to pay by overtime worked and the largest group is "under 20 hours," at 57[8], followed by "60 hours or more but under 80" at 55. By the event held to have contributed to onset, "power harassment by a superior" leads with 222[8], followed by "serious nuisance behaviour by customers, clients or facility users" and "sexual harassment" at 127 each. Where counting hours will not settle the question, establishing the facts grows heavier too. Time to decision is not lengthening from volume alone.

Who Is Being Kept Waiting

The industries are lopsided as well. Claims for mental illness are led by "medical care and welfare," at 1,288[8], which also leads decisions to pay at 292. Within it, social insurance, social welfare and nursing care alone account for 706 claims and 151 decisions[8]. The workplaces short of hands file the most claims, and those are the workplaces where whoever remains carries the gap the missing person leaves. Time spent waiting for a decision bears on the workplace too.

Benefits Begin Only Once a Case Is Certified

The problem lies less in the length of the wait than in how one lives through the gap. Work-injury insurance pays only after certification. During the gap between filing and certification, the livelihood of the victim or the bereaved is not supported by work-injury insurance.

A Living Worker Has the Health-Insurance Bridge

A living worker who can no longer work has a partial bridge: the health-insurance sickness allowance. The Health Insurance Act, in principle, excludes work-caused illness and injury from its benefits (Article 1). But in practice, while a work-injury claim is pending and not yet certified, health insurance may pay the sickness allowance provisionally, treating the case as under work-injury confirmation, and claw it back if the injury is later certified as work-related. The Board of Audit's FY2017 audit report confirms this practice as observed in FY2014–2015. Since the structure by which health insurance excludes work injury is unchanged, this bridge appears to continue. It is not complete, but it fills part of the gap.

The Bereaved Have No Such Bridge

For the family of a worker who has died, however, there is no such bridge. Work-injury bereaved compensation includes an advance lump sum. But the statute says it is paid, on application, "to a bereaved family member entitled to receive the bereaved compensation pension" (Article 60(1)). Entitlement to the pension arises from certification, so this is a post-certification device. It cannot be received before certification. The amount is capped at 1,000 days of the basic daily benefit, and the right lapses two years after it can first be exercised.

Car-accident compulsory insurance has an interim payment that can be drawn without waiting for a decision, but work-injury insurance has no such mechanism. Search the text of the Industrial Accident Compensation Insurance Act and the term for an interim payment does not appear once. What health insurance gives the bereaved is only a one-off funeral grant, not continuing income support. While they wait for certification, the public bridge the bereaved can rely on is all but absent.

The Same Wait Weighs Differently

Here lies an asymmetry. A living worker who can no longer work can partly fill the wait with the health-insurance sickness allowance. But the family of a worker who has died has nothing to bridge it. While they wait for certification, the bereaved must fall back on public assistance or bear the cost themselves. For the same waiting on work-injury certification, the weight of the gap differs utterly between the living victim and the bereaved.

Only What Comes After Certification Is Built in Detail

Why does this asymmetry arise? The scheme has designed post-certification benefits in fine detail. Bereaved pensions and advance lump sums are all built on the premise of certification. But the gap before certification is thinly provided for. Between work-injury insurance, a labor scheme, and public assistance and health insurance, social-security schemes, the family waiting on certification falls into the seam. The pattern of a scheme that exists but never reaches the people it is for is taken up in the common structure behind populations policy fails to reach（このサイトの記事）. What fails here is a variant: not that the scheme cannot reach them, but that nothing exists for the time before it arrives.

Delay Deepens the Asymmetry

Prolonging deepens this asymmetry. If a case settles within the four-month guide, the gap is short. But with 2,329 cases undecided past six months, doubled in five years, the gap often runs well beyond the guide. The longer the wait, the wider the gap for the bereaved, who have nothing to bridge it. The problem of time to certification is also a problem of review capacity. If inspectors barely grow while claims double, the time that can be spent per case falls, and decisions slow.

It Deserves the Weight Given to Certification Itself

The standards for work-injury certification, and whether a claim is certified, have long been debated. But how to support the gap before certification has rarely been discussed. As certifications for work-related mental disorders keep setting records（このサイトの記事）, who, and how, will bridge the living of those who wait — above all the gap for the family of a worker who has died? It deserves to be asked with the same weight as whether a claim is certified.

Further Reading

• 審査・再審査・裁判例に学ぶ　「脳・心臓疾患」「精神障害」労災認定の仕組みを理解する (Understanding How Work-Injury Certification Works, through Reviews, Re-Reviews, and Court Cases)（外部サイト、新しいタブで開きます） (Ken Takahashi and Naoki Tsutsui, Rodo Shimbunsha, March 2026) — a practitioner's guide to the mechanism of work-injury certification for brain and heart disease and for mental disorders, following the actual reviews, re-reviews, and court cases. (In Japanese.)

References

FY2025 Status of Work-Injury Compensation for Death from Overwork and the Like — Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare. Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, Labour Standards Bureau

Labour Inspection Annual Report (2024) — Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare. Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, Labour Standards Bureau

FY2017 Audit Report — Board of Audit of Japan. Board of Audit of Japan

Industrial Accident Compensation Insurance Act (Act No. 50 of 1947) — Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare. e-Gov Law Search