3 Companies Hit Hardest by Deaths of Contractors

At least 181 U.S. contractors have died this year in Iraq, and more than half worked for Titan Corp., Halliburton Co. or Computer Science Corp.’s DynCorp Technical Services unit, according to U.S. Labor Department data.

The number of contractor personnel deaths contrasts with 23 deaths in 2003. It doesn’t include the four Halliburton employees who were killed this week in an attack on a U.S. base near Mosul, in northern Iraq.

Eighty-three companies have filed 1,605 insurance claims under a 1941 law that requires death or disability payments for workers, foreign and American, killed or injured overseas while employed on U.S. contracts.

San Diego-based Titan has filed claims for 86 deaths. Halliburton units have filed 20 death claims and DynCorp Technical Services has filed 11.