Workers Comp Expert Witness – A Niche’ ?

Being a Workers Comp expert witness over the years has taught me many very interesting experiences. I thought I would cover a few of those which provided a lesson.

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Memorization

One cannot lull themselves into thinking that you can memorize the WC statute, rules, Rating Bureau information and other information. The path to driving yourself crazy is to try to memorize all of it. There just no way to store all that information and be a successful workers comp expert witness.

Each State Unto Itself

Each state has established its own very unique set of rules. If one wants to see how independent each state is from each other, just pull up their workers compensation statutes, rules, etc. No two states are alike in all aspects. There are similarities between states but I have yet to see carbon copies.

Rating Bureaus

The NCCI and WCIRB are the two most popular rating bureaus. As with the general WC regulations, there are similarities between each state rated by NCCI. Believe it or not, there are also similarities to the WCIRB ratings and NCCI. NCCI has to check with each state to make sure that any NCCI rules are accepted by the state.

There are some examples in the press of where states have actually rejected NCCI’s ratings. Without the differences between each state, the NCCI rating information and rules would be much smaller.

Multifaceted

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Being a Workers Comp expert witness is a multifaceted endeavor. There are many areas that can be considered a niche’ such as:

Agency
Policy
Claims Handling
Ratings
Premium Audits
Self Insurance
Many others

The list can be very lengthy.

The Key

One of the main keys to me in workers comp expert witness is how you dress and act overall. Attorneys assess how you will look to a judge and jury just as much as your knowledge base during a deposition or in any written report. Acting and writing professionally at all times can never be seen as a negative trait.

Workers Comp Claims Review Experts Can Be Hard To Find

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Choosing a great Workers Comp claims review expert is some of the best strategically invested money in a company’s budget. The main things to look for in your search are:

Designations – such as AIC, ARM, CPCU, etc. Our next post will cover some of the designations. These designations are granted after a candidate passes national exams for a certain number of courses.
Years of Experience – while this is a great indicator, we have performed review work after a so-called very experienced claims consultant that did not review the files very well.
From One of the Big Companies – this is not an indicator of the level of service you will receive as it is down to the individual claims consultants in the companies that will service your account.
Experience in a Certain State – this is not a big factor as one might believe. The main thing to remember is a claims consultant that has multi-state experience shows adaptability to different state systems.
Prior Claims Adjusting Experience – there are some claims consultant companies that have no or few employees with actual claims adjusting experience.
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Statistical Backgrounds – this is critical for file by file reviews and is important for finding trends in the claims reserving
No Conflicts of Interest – any person that may make a commission off your Work Comp policy may not be able to give an uninfluenced opinion.

I did not put these in any order of importance. Each file review is unto itself. The best of both worlds is to have a reserve/claims expert company that also reviews the premium calculations. A shameless plug – we are one of the few companies in existence that do both.

Up Next – Designations – What are they??

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