Labor Lawsuits Increase with Nearly 138,000 Projected for This Year

Labor litigation linked to the Workers' Risk Insurers (ART) has once again shown high levels in Argentina, and according to the Union of Workers' Risk Insurers (UART), it could close 2026 with nearly 138,000 new claims. The business chamber reported that between January and July, 72,525 new cases accumulated across the country, in a scenario that keeps the system under pressure and consolidates a growth trend compared to last year's already high levels.

According to the entity's survey, the rate of incoming claims has remained above 11,000 monthly claims over the past year. With this dynamic, the acceleration projection for all of 2026 reaches 137,800 lawsuits.

In July, 7,814 new claims were filed, a figure lower than that recorded in June due to the seasonal effect of the judicial recess. However, the monthly decrease did not change the underlying trend: the accumulated mobile litigation over the last 12 months already totals nearly 135,400 notifications.

UART warned that labor litigation continues to exceed last year's values and maintains a very wide gap compared to other countries. According to the entity, the number of lawsuits related to the workers' risk system in Argentina exceeds 23 times the levels in Chile and 16 times those in Spain.

This data reinforces the concerns of the insurance sector, which has been calling for measures to reduce claims deemed unjustified and improve the predictability of the system.

The chamber maintains that the current level of lawsuits is disproportionate compared to the functioning of the ART regime, which today covers more than 10 million workers and 1 million employers across the country.

Although the phenomenon is national, the report highlights a particularly critical situation in some jurisdictions. In July, Santa Fe recorded 1,525 new claims, an increase of 20.7% compared to the same month in 2025.

With this monthly volume, the province surpassed the City of Buenos Aires, which had 1,510 lawsuits, and became the second jurisdiction with the most claims in the country, behind the province of Buenos Aires, which recorded 2,805 cases.

In the accumulated total for the first seven months of the year, Santa Fe added 12,150 lawsuits and showed an annual increase of 18%, well above the 2% recorded nationally. Furthermore, the projected litigation rate for 2026 reaches 349 lawsuits for every 10,000 workers, more than 2.5 times the national average, which stands at 138.

UART noted that this increase contrasts with the expected trend following the creation of the Official Experts Corps in the province, a reform aimed at reducing incentives for unjustified claims and restoring predictability to the system.

The report also highlighted a recent ruling by the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation in the case "Pagani, Sergio Leandro Emanuel vs. Provincia ART S.A. regarding resource Law 27.348."

On August 6, the highest court unanimously revoked a ruling from Chamber II of the National Labor Appeals Court that had increased the amount of the penalty against an ART, despite the worker not having appealed the decision.

The Court considered that the principle of "reformatio in peius" had been violated, a procedural guarantee that prevents modifying a ruling to the detriment of the appellant when the other party did not challenge the ruling.

For UART, the precedent constitutes a favorable signal to limit judicial criteria that aggravate litigation. The entity also recalled that Article 89 of the Labor Modernization Law requires labor judges to align their decisions with the doctrine of the Court, under penalty of incurring in poor performance.

The business chamber stated that litigation continues to persist and that the ongoing level of claims demands responses from labor judicial actors.

According to UART, rulings like that of the Supreme Court are heading in the right direction, but are not sufficient on their own to reverse a dynamic that it considers risky for the system.

The entity argued that the ART regime plays a central role in accident prevention, worker care, and employer coverage. After 30 years of the system's implementation, it noted that 5.1 million workplace accidents have been avoided and more than 20,000 lives saved thanks to prevention policies.

In this context, the projection of nearly 138,000 new claims for 2026 once again places labor litigation as one of the main points of tension in the workers' risk system.

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