Workers Comp Safety Innovator Now Thing Of Past – Correction

May 16, 2017 By JL Risk Management Consultants

A Great Workers Comp Safety Source Closed Down After 60 Years

Workers Comp safety peer reviewed research provider has been shut down. Liberty Mutual Insurance Companies have stopped performing peer reviewed workers comp safety research this week.

Wikimedia Commons – James Alan 1986

The Liberty Mutual workers comp safety facility partnered with outstanding organizations such as:

MIT
Harvard School of Public Health,
University of Massachusetts at Amherst
University of Massachusetts at Lowell

The research institute created the Workplace Safety Index. I had read over quite a bit of their cutting-edge research over the years. A few articles in this blog referred to their research results. Liberty Mutual produced the 2017 Workplace Safety Index in PDF form.

Overexertion involving outside sources topped the list as the most expensive type of injury.

According to the report –

This event category, which includes injuries related to lifting, pushing, pulling, holding, carrying or throwing objects, cost businesses $13.79 billion in direct costs and accounted for 23 percent of the overall national burden.

23% appears to be a significant number. Lower back injuries generate huge WC losses from just lifting injuries alone.

Hand Holding Magnifying Glass Workers Comp Safety Icon

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I had always thought the 2nd place injury type was the most expensive –

Falls on same level ranked second with direct costs of $10.62 billion and accounted for 17.7 percent of the total injury burden.

Correction – After talking with two Liberty Mutual employees, I was informed that the Hopkinton, Massachusetts, facility remains open – the peer reviewed research efforts ended this month.

Liberty Mutual owns the largest database on Workers Comp. Hopefully, they will share it with the outside workers comp community. But then again, why would they lose that competitive advantage?

I guess that, as I have said before, Workers Comp never really changes. I stand corrected on this issue. We all hate to see the facility go, but then again who can blame them for ending the peer-reviewed workers comp safety studies?

©J&L Risk Management Inc Copyright Notice

Workers Comp Systems Are Antiquated At Best

November 26, 2012 By JL Risk Management Consultants

Workers Comp Systems

One of my main concerns in working with clients is the basically outdated Workers Comp systems that have to be trudged through to even perform basic operations. This article on outdated Workers Comp systems analyzed what Workers Comp claims workers already knew – most systems are severely outdated.

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When we advise investment groups or are analyzing a claims system, I am sometimes shocked at the system in place. Workers Comp systems are actually even worse. When I attended the recent LRP National Workers Compensation Conference in Las Vegas this year and last, I was searching for something new in the claim processing arena. While there are great system providers, I still did not see one that I would call cutting-edge.

The aforementioned article centered on a study of claims executives. Some of these are not necessarily directly related to Workers Comp. However, there are some that are “spot on. ” Some of the almost shocking results were:

83% of claims executives thought their systems were outdated and they needed the IT departments help to make any changes
Half (54 percent) of those surveyed say their core claims systems are more than five years old and almost one-third (32 percent) of respondents say they rely on more than five different applications to process claims. How can someone be productive if they have to run five different systems? I know of one carrier that presently uses eight.
Wikimedia Commons – Dreamsoffuture
More than three-quarters (78 percent) of respondents say they are on a path to upgrade their claims systems; among these respondents, almost one-third (31 percent) say the last major upgrade was made more than three years ago.
Two-thirds (66 percent) of claims executives surveyed think their claims systems are not optimized to collect and analyze the growing volume of data available – such as insights about consumers from social media and usage data collected by means of telemetry and Global Positioning System – which would enable them to refine and improve claims management.
More than three-quarters (78 percent) of respondents say their claims organization is not equipped to manage new forms and level of risks such as cyber-crime, terrorism, increased frequency of severity of natural catastrophes.

I will cover one statistic in my next post that will have employers and some claim adjusters shouting at their screens. It is a shocker.

©J&L Risk Management Inc Copyright Notice

Modified Self Insurance – Caveat On Risk

July 25, 2012 By JL Risk Management Consultants

The Modified Self Insurance

Captives, large deductibles, and other types of workers comp modified self insurance are now gaining great importance due to the present economy. All companies are now searching for a way to insure for Workers Comp accidents at a reduced rate. One of J&L’s specialties is providing alternatives to traditional insurance programs.

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Basic self Insurance, captives, large deductibles, self insurance pools, and other types of self insurance have their pros and cons. Regardless of the type of self insurance, your company is directly “on the hook” for the losses.

Reinsurance may be a great stop-loss measure for a single large claim or a string of unanticipated accidents when compared to a loss history. Until the aggregate (large number of claims) is reached or a single accident payout reaches a certain level, your company is on its own when having to pay Workers Comp benefits.

There is a large amount of interest in captives from almost all of our medium to large sized employer clients. I wanted to cover an important point about captives. Captives are the “cutting edge” of self insurance presently. There are many new terms with captives such as:

Fronting company
Protected cell
Parent company
Domicile

I wanted to clear up any confusion about who funds the captives. Captives (as with self insurance) are funded somewhat indirectly out-of-pocket by the employer. If your company’s risk tolerance is not to the level of being self insured, a captive may not be for you. There are also upfront costs that can be substantial when establishing a captive or even a rent-a-captive.

I do not want to discourage any company from seeking any type of insurance program that may save funds that can be used elsewhere in a budget. However, it is a giant task to commence a self insured or modified self insured program and then decide that is not the desired type of program.

I will cover some of the other modified self insurance programs next time.

Who Is A Public Adjuster for Workers Compensation?

May 16, 2011 By JL Risk Management Consultants

Term Of The Day – Public Adjuster

A Public Adjuster represents the insureds rather than the carrier during claims processing. In this way, insureds can be assured of their rights to insurance proceeds. These adjusters are normally paid on a percentage of the adjusted loss, or hourly, or on a per case basis.

Picture of News Paper Public Adjuster Circle With Stabilo

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The workers comp public adjuster term denotes the cutting edge of this line of insurance. If one looks for this type of adjuster under a WC heading, they will find nothing.

I think of a public -type adjuster for workers comp as performing these tasks:

Reviewing all or a sample set of claims to insure the performance of a certain carrier’s claims staff
Making sure the reserves are set properly. See reserve explanation here.
Checking with the client to make sure they are satisfied with current carrier and address any problems
Request updates from adjusters (email only) on the larger files and all files within a year of opening
Monitor all large claims to enhance loss control over a certain set of claims
Reporting findings to designated employer on a monthly basis

Public adjuster guides appear all over the internet for Property and Casualty claims – think large property losses. In the future, workers comp claims staffs will hear from some type of public adjuster on open claims.