Risk & Business

Every business will sign contracts with vendors or other companies to do business with them. Many of these contracts are signed with indemnifications. The business who lets the contract will require the business who wants to do business with them, to sign an indemnification. The clause usually says that the business will indemnify the other for claims that come out of the business dealings.  So now lets look at how a work comp claim can cause problems for businesses that indemnify other businesses. Here is the example: Company A signs a contract with Company B for a business project that can be very lucrative for Company A.  During the project a Company A employee gets hurt on the job. The  insurance company for Company A pays the comp claim and the employee gets back to work after some time. Then months later the employee files a lawsuit against Company B since the injury was during the project with Company B. Company B then tenders the lawsuit back to Company A because Company A agre

It seems more and more calls are answered by robots. Call your credit card company, bank, even your electric utility and you are met with a voice activated robot that talks and acts like a human being. This is an example of artificial intelligence (AI) servicing our world of commerce. The insurance industry is now adopting this same approach. Call the 800 number and the insurance company robot is there to  process your premium payment, take your claim, and even make changes to your policy. The insurance industry looks at this as a major opportunity for cost savings as AI is replacing the need for humans. This also affects your local insurance agent or broker. If you can easily have your insurance transactions serviced by robots then what will you need your agents for? The answer to this question is advocacy. Your agent is your only hope to advocate against the very large and powerful insurance industry. Your local agent has relationships with company underwriters and upper management t

Studies have made it very clear that injured workers that can return to work quickly, do better in their long term recovery.  In other words the faster they can return to their jobs the lower the total cost of the work comp claim. However this usually requires a light duty transition job that most employers just do not have available. The absence of light duty work, keeps injured workers home and this usually means a more costly claim. In addition in some States, the rules for offering a return to work job are extremely rigid and hard to adhere to. This also keeps employers from offering these programs. Regardless of the obstacles, every employer should try to get their injured workers back as soon as practical. If this means going through the effort to create a light duty job offer, it will be well worth it. Keeping work comp claim cost down will keep insurance premiums down. Experience modifiers applied to your work comp rates will also be lower and your injured employee will be be