R&R Insurance Blog

We saw a great article by Jim Guidry of the Wisconsin Office of the Commissioner of Insurance which had a great suggestion on another way to protect your property using your iPhone® or iPad®.

With 2011 being a "bad claims" year, what better way to prepare and protect yourself this year than using your iPhone or iPad?

Use Your iPhone To Help Protect Your Personal Property

Wisconsin's severe storms can potentially cause significant damage to your home and its contents. The average claim payment for damage to or loss of home contents in Wisconsin was $5,961 in 2010.

One great free home inventory app to help with your home inventory process: myHOME Scr.APP.book (from the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC)).

More information on how to do your own home inventory.

Wisconsin residents, contact KnowledgeBroker, Kori Cumley for more ways to protect your personal property.

We ran across this helpful article by Eric Markowitz of Inc.com informing us of ways to keep active at work. Recent studies suggest sitting for long periods of time is worse than you might think. Here are tips to help sedentary employees stay healthy.

Studies found sitting for extended periods is hazardous to your health. According to NPR, "men who reported more than 23 hours a week of sedentary activity had a 64 percent greater risk of dying from heart disease than those who reported less than 11 hours a week of sedentary activity,".

Healthy employees make for more productive employees. One Australian study found that "the healthiest employees are nearly three times more productive while at work than the least healthy—140 effective working hours per month versus 45 effective hours worked per month."

Some even believe that sitting (or "excessive sitting") could be the basis for future Occupational and Safety and Health Administration complaints and even workplace litigation. According to Emmanuel Turner, a lecturer in computer graphic design, on his blog. "If this happens then work place computer usage will need to change to be less sedentary."

So what can you do to keep in shape and active while working in an office?

• Take frequent micro - breaks - that is, getting up and moving every 15 minutes. That is more valuable than taking long breaks.
• Make your meetings mobile. Why meet around a conference table when you can go for a walk? When it's nice out, grab your tablets and head outdoors.
• Think treadmill or standing desk. It may sound silly (and look even sillier) but exercising at one's desk is an ideal way to keep active at the office.
• Start a wellness program.

Many people think that if you’ve seen one sprinkler system, you’ve seen them all! While this may appear to be the case, these systems are highly engineered and should be designed specifically for what you are doing in your building. Here are some key points about sprinkler protection and why this issue could be costing you a lot of property premium dollars.

What was your sprinkler system originally designed for?
Sprinkler systems are supposed to be designed to put out a density of water that has been proven to control a fire. Do you need the same density to control a fire in a metal working shop as you do in a plastics warehouse? NO!!! The National Fire Protection Association has done a great deal of research to find out what sprinkler designs protect a given building occupancy. The process starts with a sprinkler contractor knowing what will be done in a particular building.

Problems arise when people move out of a building and a new tenant or owner comes in.
Other problems occur from a building owner or tenant doing something in the building that they weren’t doing when the sprinkler contractor originally designed their sprinkler system. The result? Your sprinkler system may not be able to control a fire in your building!

Why should I care about this?
First and most importantly, you should care because your entire facility may be at risk for a fire loss. The beauty of properly designed sprinkler systems is that fire is controlled in a relatively small area with minimized damage. If your sprinkler system design is inadequate, you may be looking at a total loss of the building and all its contents. You may be covered from an insurance standpoint, but is this something you want your company to go through?

Secondly, most insurance companies use preferred rates for those facilities rated as "sprinklered". If your system has an inadequate sprinkler system, you could be getting charged the same rate as a building having no sprinkler system at all. To get the sprinklered property rates you deserve, you can figure out an approximate pay back period for work needed to upgrade your sprinkler system.

Any Wisconsin business needing more information on property insurance, sprinkler requirements or any other casualty insurance information contact a knowledgebroker. 800-566-7007

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In June 2011, OSHA implemented their new residential fall protection rules. This short video explains a common sense approach to comply with these new rules. A copy of the new rules can be obtained by visiting www.OSHA.gov. This video addresses how these new rules affect the obligations of the general contractor. These rules apply to any tradesmen that work more than six feet off the ground or a lower level.

View OSHA's directive.

The new rules require fall protection for any employee working on the roof. The historical problem with this approach is that residential structures do not have an obvious attachment point for a harness. Commercial structures usually have flat roofs so a guardrail system can be used in that scenario. The pitched roofs on residential structures, with their gable ends, make the guardrail solution impractical.

By using the DBI Sala U-Bolt Roof Anchor, a personal fall arrest system can be easily attached to a pitched roof. The homebuilder supplies this device.

The framing contractor attaches the anchor to a roof truss while the truss is on the ground.

The roof anchor is easily incorporated into a contractor's use while on the roof.

An additional benefit to the homeowner is that the anchor is a permanent installation. It's there for the homeowner to use for future maintenance needs.

Wisconsin businesses, for more information on OSHA compliance issues contact knowledgebroker Paul Seitz 262-953-7245.

Accountable Care Organizations, or ACOs, are certainly the buzz word in healthcare. If you are a healthcare provider and serve at least 5000 medicare patients, you are either thinking about, talking about, or considering joining an ACO. In preparing for a recent presentation at the WMGMA on this topic, I had to wonder how this idea originated and what was the intent of the lawmakers who put ACOs into motion.

The idea of managing care is not new.
HMOs began in the early 1970s as an alleged cost cutting tool. Where HMOs served a large population of patients and had an insurance risk bearing function, ACOs are designed for a smaller number of patients and have no insurance risk bearing function inherent in the structure.

To give some context to where we are today, we need to go back to 2005 and the Deficit Reduction Act. At that time the government was looking to replace the Sustainable Growth Rate (SGR) formula that was being used to pay physicians under Medicare Part B. In the Act, they instructed Medpac (the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission) to come up with an alternative method. Congress was interested in substituting the SGR with a method that would break the physicians into “pools” that were smaller than the entire population of US physicians that treat Medicare patients. The theory was that if they could group physicians into smaller groups and subject them to spending caps, the caps would work better at controlling costs than the SGR.

Medpac held a public meeting in November, 2006 and Dr. Elliott Fisher, Director of the Center for Health Policy Research at Dartmouth Medical School, presented to the commission. It was during the question and answer period of the meeting that the term “accountable care organization” was first known to be used.

Dr. Fisher and a number of colleagues published an article in December, 2006 entitled “Creating Accountable Care Organizations: The Extended Hospital Medical Staff, a new approach to organizing care and ensuring accountability”. In this article they discuss the problem with the healthcare system is the “disjointed, and poorly coordinated care that patients receive as they move across settings and among providers, more frequent and flawed care transitions, failures of communication, and errors. “

In April of 2009 Dr. Fisher was asked to appear before the US House Committee on Ways and Means. In his testimony before the committee Dr. Fisher testified that he and his colleagues believed that the lower quality and worse outcomes experience by Medicare patients were largely a consequence of a payment system that reinforced fragmentation and rewarded the growth of profitable but unnecessary services. He suggested that in order to improve quality and slow spending growth the following 3 principles must be embraced:

1. Foster the development of integrated and organized local care systems with a strong foundation in primary care.
2. Move rapidly toward performance measurement that fosters accountability for care coordination, health outcomes, and overall cost of care.
3. Shift toward a payment method that rewards value. Better care, Better Health, Lower Cost.

An Accountable Care Organization is one approach to meeting these goals.

For those providers that are familiar with the proposed rules for forming an ACO released by Health and Human Services on March 31, you can certainly see how the government is attempting to put theory into reality.

Wisconsin Insurance Commissioner Ted Nickel reminds and encourages consumers to make sure their insurance policy is up to date before the rainy season starts. "Many consumers don't realize that a flood insurance policy has a 30-day waiting period before it becomes effective," said Nickel. "Consumers need to act soon in order to have the protection in place by the time spring arrives."

Wisconsin's recent experience with flooding should serve as a reminder to everyone that you don't need to live in a flood plain to be exposed to flooding. Every year since 2007, there has been flooding in the state serious enough to cause significant damage, some serious enough to result in federal disaster declarations.

According to FEMA, there were less than 16,500 flood insurance polices in force as of September 30, 2010. While there was 3% growth in the number of flood insurance policies sold in Wisconsin for the same period, "We need to do better," said Nickel. "There is too much exposure and not enough coverage."

The standard homeowner's policy does not cover damage to property and possessions in the event of a flood. Just a few inches of flood water can cause thousands of dollars in damage.

Flood insurance is relatively inexpensive and is available under the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP), a federally-backed program managed by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). Under the flood insurance program, coverage may be purchased as long as the property is located in a community that participates in the NFIP. To verify if a community participates, check with a property insurance agent or visit the FEMA Website. Information on the program can be obtained by calling 800-427-2419 or visiting www.floodsmart.gov.

If you are Wisconsin resident and would like to know more about flood insurance for your personal insurance package contact a knowledgbroker.

After the devasting effects of a fire, resist the urge to start the cleaning process right away. Improper cleaning can actually cause additional damage, rendering some items unrestorable.

Things To Do:

• Open windows for ventilation if weather permits
• If it is winter and the heat is off, pour antifreeze in toilet bowls, tanks, sinks, and tub drains to prevent freeze damage. Call a plumber to drain water lines because water pipes can cause additional damage if they burst.
• Relocate pets to a safe environment
• Empty refrigerators and freezers if electricity is off. Prop doors open to allow air circulation.

Things Not To Do:

• Turn on any electrical appliances until they have been cleaned and checked.
• Use food items or canned goods that have been exposed to heat
• Attempt to wash fire residue from walls, ceilings and other surfaces.

For more great tips and info go to www.kelmann.com or contact your Knowledge Brokers

Water Damage can happen due to storms, broken water pipes, clogged drains, broken appliances, roof leaks, sewer leaks and more. Water damage requires fast action.

Here are some ways to minimize your damage before professional help arrives:

Do's

• Always use rubber gloves to protect your hands & rubber boots to protect your feet and legs.
• Damage from water and bacteria growth can begin within hours. Call for professional help. Remove as much water as possible by mopping and blotting with sponges.
• Pull up wet rugs and carpets if hardwood floors are below.
• Lift draperies off the floor, loop through a coat hanger and place the hanger on the drapery rod.
• Wipe furniture, prop up wet furniture cushions for even drying and place aluminum foil under furniture legs.
• Move photos, paintings, art objects, computers, other electronics and valuables to a safe, dry location.
• Do not remove books from shelves. Pack them tightly to prevent page warping until a restoration professional can begin this specialized drying.
• Ventilate wet areas. Turn on air conditioning for faster drying in summer (only if there is no visible mold) and winter, alternate cycles of opened windows and heating. Also, open drawers, closets and cabinet doors to enhance drying.

Don'ts

• Do not enter rooms where there is wet and sagging ceiling!
• Do not enter a room with standing water until electricity has been turned off.
• Do not use a regular household vacuum to remove water.
• Use heat to dry closed building interiors. Mildew and more moisture damage can occur.
• Do not use electrical appliances while on wet carpet or flooring.
• Do not disturb visible mold.

For Wisconsin residents, contact a KnowledgeBroker at R&R Insurance for information on protecting your home from water damage, floods, broke pipes. We do offer sewer backup endorsements and have up to date information for flood zone residents, including the new cost-saving flood insurance from FEMA.

Information taken in part from ServiceMaster Clean website.

Allegations of Billing Fraud- In the form a Medicare, medicaid or commercial audit, hospitals are under constant threat of investigations that could lead to costly legal expenses as well as enormous fines and penalties. Government agencies, private consulting firms, patients and employees are targeting the healthcare industry for allegations of fraud.

FFActs plus expands coverage beyond governmental audits and provides defense costs for commercial payor investigations for billing fraud. The program will continue to cover fines and penalties and related defense costs for government audits (Medicare/Medicaid).

For more information please contact a knowledgebroker.