R&R Insurance Blog

Holidays don't need to be dangerous, they need to be celebrated! We have some pointers of things to watch out for so you and your favorite four-legged friend remain jolly!

1. Chocolate is everywhere during the holidays. Dogs are at risk for chocolate toxicity, which by itself is rarely fatal when treated. The darker and stronger chocolate put your pooch more at risk.

2. Ornaments, wrapping paper, ribbons, all things you'd think a dog wouldn't want to eat; however they do some silly things. Keep holiday decor up and out of the way!

3. Poinsettia and mistletoe are mildly toxic for dogs!

4. Grapes or raisin indigestion may lead to fatal kidney failure, so remind your guests not to throw any to your dog!

5. Onions and garlic also are toxic for dogs, and can cause anemia!

Holiday decorations that glitter with lights and sparkle symbolize the joyous spirit of the holiday season, but we must not forget the potential fire hazards that can be a tragic part of this time of celebration. Wisconsin residents, contact knowledgebroker Kori Cumley for fire safety tips or a quick quote on home and auto insurance.

Learn to Recognize the Warning Signs and Prevent Cyber Crime

Think your business is reasonably safe from a cyber-attack? Think again. The threat is so widespread that there is an entire black market built to arm hackers with the tools they need to breach your systems.

The good news is that there are a number of steps your business can take to not only protect your employee and client data, but also to demonstrate the level of diligence that is critical to your customers and insurers. Click here to download our free e-book: Prepare Your Business For a Cyber-Attack.

In addition to the e-book I want to share with you the results of the NetDiligence 2014 Study of Cyber Claims. This is their fourth annual study about data breaches and the claim losses they sustain. In the study they analyzed 117 data breach insurance claims in a variety of business sectors. They estimate this represents 5-10% of all claims filed. Here are some of the highlights:

1. Personally Identifiable Information was the most frequently exposed data followed by Personal Health Information
2. Hackers were the most frequent cause of loss followed by staff mistakes.
3. Healthcare was the sector most frequently breached followed by financial services
4. Small revenue (under $2 billion) companies experience most incidents
5. The average claim payout was $733.109. The average for a large company was $2.9 million, for healthcare it was $1.3 million
6. The average cost per record cost was $956.21
7. The average cost for Response Costs was $366,484
8. The average cost of legal defense was $698,797
9. The average cost of legal settlement was $588,520
10. Breach response costs are 30% higher when no insurance is in place.

This study further emphasizes the risks and the key role that insurance can play.

Agency Contract Review Disclaimer - R&R Agency Contract Review Disclaimer

At your request, our agency will review the insurance requirements in the contract furnished to us.

Scope of Review. Our agency will review only the insurance requirements contained in the contract. In performing this limited review, our agency is not providing legal advice or a legal opinion concerning any portion of the contract. No lawyer-client relationship is created by our review of this or any other contract. We strongly suggest that this contract be reviewed by your own legal counsel.

The scope of our review will be to determine if the current insurance program which you have placed through our agency addresses the types and amounts of insurance coverage referenced by the contract. We will identify the significant insurance obligations and advise you of any changes required in your current insurance program to meet the requirements of the contract. At your request and upon your authorization, we will make the necessary changes in your insurance program.

Our agency is not undertaking to identify all potential liabilities that may arise under this contract. This review is provided for your information, and should not be relied upon by third parties. Any descriptions of insurance coverage(s) are subject to the terms, conditions, exclusion, and other provisions of the policies and any applicable laws or regulations.

Disclaimer of Liability. In no event shall our agent and its related, affiliated and subsidiary companies be liable for any direct, indirect, special, incidental, or consequential damages arising out of the limited contract review.

Quite often, I’ll get questions from employers wondering what impact the ACA will have on worker’s compensation. A recent study by the Worker’s Compensation Research Institute (WCRI) helps shed some light on what employers can expect. It’s not encouraging news.

According to the recent WCRI study, hundreds of millions of dollars in insurance claims nationally could shift from health insurers to worker’s compensation carriers.

The concept is simple. The Affordable Care Act encourages health providers to form Accountable Care Organizations that shift payment from a traditional fee-for-service model to capitated or pre-paid health insurance. As you know through experience, most worker’s compensation treatment is based on fee-for-service.

The study suggests that providers may, in some cases, have a financial incentive to categorize an injury as being work-related. In States like Wisconsin and Pennsylvania where a large percentage of workers are enrolled in capitated health plans, this case shifting could be significant.

For more information on the report, click here.

If you would like assistance with evaluating your current worker’s compensation policies and procedures to see if there are ways to strength your program, please contact me.

As fall creeps in, the risk of a deer-vehicle accidents greatly increases. Deer-vehicle collisions are actually three times more likely to occur on a day in November than they are on any day between February 1 and August 31.

Travelers recently provided these valuable driving tips to help you avoid hitting a large animal and to limit or avoid damage to your vehicle:

• Deer collisions typically happen from sunset to midnight and in the hours before and after sunrise. Be especially alert during these times.
• Drive carefully through areas with high deer populations and deer crossing zones. Deer typically travel in numbers, so where you see one, there are likely others.
• When traveling at night, use your high beams whenever possible.
• If you see deer, slow down and blow your horn to frighten them away. Stay in your lane and brake firmly. Many deer-related accidents are caused by one car hitting another while attempting to avoid an animal.
• Always wear your seatbelt.
• Do not rely on deer whistles to repel deer.

For additional resources, contact a Knowledge Broker at R&R Insurance. Drive safely!

OSHA recently announced they will be expanding their enforcement resources in hospitals and nursing homes. Targeting the most common causes of workplace injury and illness in the healthcare industry, OSHA will primarily focus on musculoskeletal disorders related to:

• Patient handling
• Bloodborne pathogen
• Workplace violence
• Tuberculosis
• Slips, trips and falls

OSHA states that in 2013, US Hospitals recorded nearly 58,000 work-related injuries and illnesses – amounting to 6.4 work-related injuries and illnesses for every 100 full-time employees. These numbers are almost two times as high as the overall rate for private industry.

How Can You Prepare?

Don’t wait for OSHA. At R&R, we highly recommend taking action now to develop a plan and prepare for a potential inspection. To better prepare your organization and your administrators, take time to answer the questions below and determine an execution plan for each of the key areas. We have also provided links below to audit materials centered on these key topics.

For audit materials on any of the topics below, or to learn how your organization can better prepare for an inspection, contact safety@rrins.com.

• Patient Handling
• Infection Control
• Exposure Control
• Workplace Violence
• Tuberculosis
• Slips, Trips and Falls

1. Additional Insured: A person or organization not automatically included as an insured under a policy, and is added by endorsement to the policy at the request of the first named insured. The person or organization then becomes an insured for a specific project, product or premises.
2. Primary and Non-contributory: Primary is a term used to determine whose policy is going to pay first; non-contributory is a term used to indicate that the primary policy will not seek contribution from the other policy until the full claim is paid or the policy is exhausted.
3. Waiver of Subrogation: The insurance carrier has the right to recover its claim payments from those who were responsible for the loss. By endorsing its policy with a waiver of subrogation, the carrier is stopped from pursuing this recovery.
4. Ongoing Operations: Work or other business activity that is in process and has not yet been completed or abandoned.
5. Completed Operations: Work of the insured that has been completed under a contract or work order, or has been put to its intended use.
6. Indemnify: To make compensation to an entity, person or organization for injury, loss or damage; to make the other party “whole”.
7. Hold Harmless Agreement: A provision in a contract that requires one contracting party to respond to certain legal liabilities of the other party. Typically, hold harmless agreements will be “basic”(or “limited"), “intermediate” or “broad”.
8. Indemnitor: The party agreeing to indemnify and hold the other party (indemnitee) harmless.
9. Per-Project Aggregate: Required by many project owners or general contractors, this is a standard endorsement to the general liability policy which allows a contractor to specify the application of a separate general aggregate limit to individual construction projects, subject to the usual maximum limit the policy will pay per policy term.
10. Alternate Employer Endorsement: Applicable when one employer lends, rents or leases an employee to another employer. This endorsement resembles an additional insured endorsement to the workers compensation policy and is attached to the regular (lending) employer’s policy.

Click here to download a copy of this blog.

R&R Insurance Services is pleased to provide this information to you as a guide. It is intentionally condensed. For a thorough explanation of these and other terms, and if applicable in your situation, please contact your Knowledge Broker.

An uninsured subcontractor can increase your exposure to liability and workers compensation claims, affect your experience modification factor and increase your premium. If the subcontractor does not carry insurance, your policy could respond in the event of a claim. An uninsured subcontractor will be considered to be your employee.

The insurance company’s auditor will ask for both payroll and 1099 records in order to determine final premium. If certificates from subcontractors cannot be produced, the cost of those subcontractors will be included in your audit.

Some tips for a successful certificate management program:

• Advise subcontractors up front that certificates will be required
• Ensure that dates on the certificate align with the length of time they will be on the project. If the project goes longer, ask for a renewal of the certificate
• The certificate must show evidence of both general liability and workers compensation insurance
• Don’t allow for exceptions, even if the subcontractor claims to be exempt from the workers compensation requirement (sole proprietor, no employees, etc.)
• Your R&R agent can assist you in setting up specific insurance requirements concerning limits and policy provisions designed to protect you such as:
  • Additional insured status
  • Primary and non-contributory insurance
  • Waiver of subrogation

We urge you to require your subcontractors to be insured and to furnish a certificate of insurance as proof. Click here to download a copy of this blog.

R&R Insurance Services is pleased to provide this information to you as a guide. It is intentionally condensed. For a thorough explanation of these and other terms, and if applicable in your situation, please contact your Knowledge Broker.

The workers compensation act in Wisconsin changes every two years through an “advisory council” process. The Worker’s Compensation Advisory Council, made up of five management representatives and five labor representatives, is charged with exchanging proposals and negotiating an agreed bill that goes off to the legislature for consideration. Typically, this agreed bill makes it through the legislature without much friction. But that's not always the case.

As we are nearing the end of this biennial cycle, it’s important that you understand the proposals that are being considered by the Worker’s Compensation Advisory Council as many could have a direct impact on what you pay for worker’s compensation insurance in the future. Here’s a brief summary of the key proposals:

LABOR PROPOSALS

• Rate Increases and Indexing: Labor is looking for sizable increases in payments made for injuries that involve permanent partial and permanent total disability.
• Continuation of Healthcare Contributions: For those employers who offer health insurance, labor is looking to require that you continue to make those employer contributions to the health plan for as long as the injured worker is in that disability state. That would be for an unlimited time and it would be regardless of whether you had terminated the employee for cause or they quit for any reason.
• Vocational Rehabilitation Exceptional: This would allow employees who are being retrained as a result of a workplace injury to collect full indemnity benefits while in school AND collect wages at another employer for up to 20 hours without an offset of indemnity benefits.

MANAGEMENT PROPOSALS

• Statute of Limitations Reduction: Currently, an employee has 12 years to pursue a worker’s compensation claim against their employer. Management is looking to reduce that to 3 years.
• Eliminate Statutory Permanent Partial Disability Ratings: Currently, there are certain surgical procedures that result in permanency ratings that automatically start at a minimum level, regardless of the outcome of the procedure. With advancements in medical procedures and technology, the management representatives would like to see these minimums removed.
• Controls on RX’s Dispensed at a Doctor’s Office: Some doctors are dispensing prescriptions to injured workers at their offices and charging insurance carriers 3-4 times the cost of the drugs. Management is asking to implement some controls on the cost and length of time a physician can dispense meds from their office.
• Medical Cost Containment: Most states in the U.S. have instituted aggressive cost containment measures to better control the cost of treatment for work related injuries. Wisconsin lacks that type of control and the cost of medical treatment is sometimes 2-3 times more expensive for work related procedures as compared to those covered under a health plan. Management is also asking for the ability to direct where an injured worker can get treated.

No doubt that many of these proposals, if they become part of a bill that gets passed by the legislature, will have an impact on the cost of your insurance going forward.

For additional insight on how any of these might impact the cost of your worker’s compensation insurance, please contact me.

Are you curious on how your experience modification factor (“ex-mod” as it is referred to in the industry) compares with other Community Action Agencies in Wisconsin? Before we get to that comparison, let’s take a step back to be sure we have a basic understanding of the experience modification factor.

Each year, about 3-4 months prior to your worker’s compensation insurance renewal, your Community Action Agency is provided with the experience modification factor that is calculated by the Wisconsin Worker’s Compensation Rating Bureau. That ex mod is based on three years of your prior loss information and simply put; it’s a reflection of how well your organization is controlling the frequency and severity of workplace injuries. It’s somewhat of a scorecard. In fact, in the for-profit world, many general contractors will only work with sub-contractors who have ex-mods at or below 1.0.

If your Agency is “average”, your experience mod is a 1.0. If you have more losses than expected for the work that you do, you will have a “debit mod” and pay more for your premium. If you have less than expected losses for the work that you do, then you will have a “credit mod” and you will pay less, thereby freeing up additional funds for vital community programs.

What I found in my analysis of the ex-mod data is that only four of the Agencies in Wisconsin have ex-mods under 1.0. And in most of instances, the ex-mods are just slightly under the benchmark. The remaining Agencies have mods over 1.0 and are paying from 5% to 39% more for their work comp insurance. Whether your ex-mod is over or under 1.0, I am confident that every Agency has the ability to reduce their ex-mod from its current value. And what programs could you fund if you were able to reduce those costs?

Click here to view the summary.

If you have an interest in learning how low your ex-mod can actually go, or would like to discuss potential policies and procedures that you could implement in the short term that would have the most impact on driving down your specific ex-mod, please contact me.