A recently published article* concluded that workers in firms with a higher degree of experience rating for workers’ compensation insurance sustain fewer non-fatal occupational injuries than workers in firms with a lower degree of experience rating. One of the limitations of the published study was that while self-insurance increases the incentive of firms to invest in safety, it also increases their incentive to be involved in excessive claims management practices. To better understand whether these results mostly reflected differential reporting behaviour or were likely due to true investments in worker safety, in the present study we considered fatal occupational injuries that are hard to under-report. In other words, we hypothesized that if self-insurance affects only claims-reporting, we would find no significant association between self-insurance and fatalities.