Security Guards

There are roughly 186,000 security guards in California, and about 40% of them — nearly 78,000 — work in the Los Angeles–Long Beach–Anaheim area. Median pay is around $20 an hour. Only 54% have health coverage through work. Turnover in the LA area ran 92.8% in 2024, against a 60.4% private-sector average.

For a lot of guards, workers' compensation is the only health coverage they have.

If you were assaulted on post, three statutory rules can change your case — and they are almost never argued together.

The psychiatric threshold drops. Ordinarily a psychiatric claim requires proving work was the predominant cause — more than 50%. Where the injury results from being a victim of a violent act, or direct exposure to a significant violent act, the standard drops to a substantial cause — 35 to 40%.

The six-month employment requirement can be waived where the injury resulted from a sudden and extraordinary employment condition. A guard assaulted in month three has a viable claim.

And the 2013 bar on psychiatric permanent disability does not apply where the psychiatric injury results from a violent act or direct exposure to one. This is the most valuable statutory exception in this vertical and it is routinely missed.

The employer's plan is your evidence

California's workplace violence prevention law took effect July 1, 2024 and applies to essentially every employer. It requires a written plan with ten specified elements — including procedures to identify, evaluate, and correct workplace violence hazards, to respond to emergencies, to accept and respond to reports without retaliation, and to review the plan annually and after every incident.

It also requires a Violent Incident Log for every incident, recording the date, time, and location, the type of violence, a detailed description, the circumstances — including whether the workplace was understaffed and whether there were effective escape routes — and what was done afterward.

Records must be kept for five years and produced to employees on request.

Why this decides cases. Guards are deployed by a contractor onto a client's premises, and both the guard company and the client have obligations at that site. A guard assaulted at a post with no hazard assessment, no incident log, no panic device, and no post orders has:

• a straightforward work-relatedness case
• a serious and willful misconduct claim worth a 50% increase in compensation — paid personally by the employer and not covered by insurance — if the employer knew of prior incidents at that post and did nothing
• a third-party claim against the client premises owner, because workers' compensation exclusivity does not protect the client
• and a retaliation claim if the response to the assault was to remove you

Your training file matters too. Guards must hold a state Guard Card with specified training hours. That file is discoverable, and an employer who deployed an untrained guard to a high-risk post has a serious problem.

What the work does

Acute — the dominant category: assault including blunt force, stabbing, and gunshot, with traumatic brain injury and concussion; injuries sustained restraining or detaining someone — shoulder dislocations, rotator cuff tears, knee and ankle injuries, bites and needlesticks; dog bites; crashes on patrol; falls in dark stairwells, parking structures, and construction sites; heat illness at outdoor and gate posts; fentanyl and biohazard exposure at transit, shelter, and encampment posts; and psychiatric injury from assault, from witnessing an overdose or a death, and from sustained threat exposure.

Cumulative trauma:

Also: hearing loss for guards at concert venues, stadiums, and firearms qualification ranges.

Getting your rate right

Turnover above 90% means most injured guards have short tenure at the employer where they were hurt. Do not let a carrier annualize a few weeks downward — the calculation should reflect your scheduled hours and earning capacity.

A second guard job is very common, and with a median wage around $20 an hour, that second job is frequently the difference between the statutory minimum benefit and a real one. Those earnings aggregate.

Graveyard, weekend, and holiday differentials count. Armed-post premiums count. On-call and standby time counts where you had to remain on premises.

Uniform allowances and permit reimbursements are contested — argue they count where paid as a flat amount unrelated to actual expense.

And one precise detail: a security guard working at a marine terminal is statutorily excluded from federal longshore coverage. Your claim is a California claim — which matters if anyone tells you otherwise. More on port jurisdiction.

Frequently asked questions