R&R Insurance Blog

Wouldn't it be great to have some sort of system in place to stop workplace injuries, fatalities and equipment damage situations before they occurred? If your company created a near-miss (close call) reporting culture, it would move a long way toward achieving that goal.

There are several benefits to having a near-miss reporting culture in place, including these:

1. It enables companies to pro-actively resolve hazards before a tragic or costly incident occurs.
2. It engages the workforce (all workers at all levels) in solving problems.
3. It increases safety ownership and reinforces workers' self-esteem.
4. It exposes valuable information that otherwise might not be discussed.
5. It develops a positive and necessary attitude surrounding safety.

When it comes to creating a near-miss reporting culture, supervisors play a key role in education and awareness building efforts.

Make Reporting a Daily Event

Many employees are either reluctant to report near-misses, are unaware of the importance of doing so, or simply don't know the reporting process. So how do you encourage the reporting habit? Here's a good tip from John Brengosz, Loss Control Representative, from R&R Insurance Services, and a current manufacturing client:

We're a manufacturing plant working with fabricated metal. We have a pre-shift at the beginning of each shift to review the daily schedule and line assignments and ask if there were any near misses the day before. These are written on a dry erase board with the date and Production Line number:

“Having Jamie as an agent has been one of the most beneficial steps I have done for my company. Jamie is not only knowledgeable in the field, but he also helps me become more proactive in my business insurance needs regarding risk exposure. He is a great facilitator between the carrier and the client so they can both come up with better solutions for running a business.”

Cheryl Sment
Interstate Sealant & Concrete, Inc.

“Jamie Vanderveldt has been very helpful and informative in the time we have worked with him. Jamie has been instrumental in helping us focus on ways to reduce our workers comp costs. He has earned our confidence as a result of his thoroughness and expertise. I appreciate his friendly and helpful attitude.”
Joe Donovan
Donovan Jorgenson Inc.

Annual benchmarking survey provides new insight on the impact of cost reductions within employer's risk management programs.

During the recession, companies slashed their risk costs by 3.1%, a recent study found. As a result, a major catastrophe could test their ability to respond. Article provided by cfo.com.

http://www.cfo.com/article.cfm/14511787

“R&R Insurance provides us with a proactive approach to managing our Workers Comp costs. Their claims review process positively impacts our bottom line. They proactively close out claims which most recently caused $23,000 to be added to our variable dividend. They play an important role on our team by always providing highly responsive service when we need it. They not only provide us with the answers to our tough insurance questions, but help us to gain an understanding of the underlying issues. With their help, we now understand that a properly managed Workers’ Comp program will provide us with a competitive advantage!”

Seth Mickelson
Marriott Construction, Inc.

“R&R’s knowledge and experience with workers compensation had an immediate effect on our insurance costs. Their continued efforts on monitoring our safety practices and working on our behalf with insurance companies keeps us competitive. Our MOD rating has done nothing but go down since we’ve partnered with R&R.”

Tom Schaus
Schaus Roofing, Inc

“Jamie Vanderveldt and the staff of R&R Insurance have been invaluable in assisting our company through the process of updating our risk management program. Having a strategic business partner like Jamie who is well versed in contractual and insurance risk-allocation practices has been a great asset in the ever-evolving construction industry.

While a premium has always been put on safety with our company, Jamie and his staff have taken our safety program to a new level with the development and implementation of a new formal written general safety program, fleet safety program and on-site training of supervisors which was completed in conjunction with John Brengosz.”

Anthony Maas
Maas Bros Construction Co.

For many years, R&R Insurance has been a member of Assurex Global. Through this partnership, we have relationships with other similar insurance agencies in all 50 states, and in 90 countries. As one of the members of R&R's International Team, we will post emerging insurance topics related to other countries in this blog. Currently, we do have clients with locations here in the Midwest, but also have brick-and-mortar in other countries like China, Germany, Canada, Mexico, and others. In addition, we also have many clients that have exposures related to import/export with other countries as well.

This article was sent to us by our friends at Assurex Global in case we have clients with operations in Spain or Portugal:

Spain and Portugal Make Environmental Liability Insurance/Guarantees a Requirement

If you are an Employer with physical operations in Spain or Portugal, this environmental liability update provided by Chartis will offer some useful background information. It also shows other European countries that will face these requirements over the next few years.

The article is from Chartis, but there are other carriers besides Chartis that can offer this coverage. If you are concerned about this environmental compliance, we would be happy to coordinate a conference call between your company and one of our Assurex partners in Spain or Portugal.

http://www.assurexglobal.com/newsletter/ChartisSpainPortugalUpdate.5.10.pdf

Fred Hosier from Safetynewsalert.com posted an article that I feel is important for employers in Wisconsin to be aware of - I do also recommend taking a look at his website as he has some very good safety knowledge to offer.

If a company fails to provide safety training required by federal law to 11 employees, can the employer be fined just once or 11 times?

A federal court says the government can fine the company 11 times.

The decision comes in the case of employer Erik Ho. He hired 11 workers to renovate a building containing asbestos.

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) found Ho failed to train them about asbestos removal or provide them with respirators, two violations of federal safety regulations.

OSHA issued 22 citations to Ho. On appeal, the Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission, an independent appeals board, found that the existing regulations didn’t allow OSHA to issue 22 separate citations. Instead, Ho faced just two fines.

In response, OSHA changed its regulations in late 2008 to allow for per-employee fines for lack of safety training and personal protective equipment.

That regulation was challenged by the National Association of Home Builders and other groups. They argued that OSHA had no authority to specify whether citations could be issued on a per-employee basis.

Now a federal court has ruled that OSHA is allowed to make such changes to federal workplace safety regulations.

What does that mean for employers? The maximum OSHA fine for one serious violation is $70,000. Multiply that fine by 11 employees, and it becomes $770,000.

Cite: National Association of Home Builders v. OSHA, U.S. Court of Appeals, District of Columbia Circuit, No. 09-1053, 4/16/10.

The property and casualty insurance industry had more than $19 billion of reserve redundancy at the end of 2009—a majority of which will be released this year and the next, according to Morgan Stanley.

A recent report on the p&c market from Morgan Stanley Investment Research said most of these reserves are in the workers’ compensation, medical malpractice and personal auto liability lines, and could be a source of future earnings as they are released.

Morgan Stanley also said the current p&c soft market will not turn hard until the industry feels a reserve deficiency, negative operating profits and adverse development. Morgan Stanley predicted that this will likely not happen until 2013.

An industry-wide drop to negative operating profits “requires profitability to shrink by $50 billion from underwriting losses,” such as from a natural or man-made catastrophe, social inflation, unforeseen product losses or a combination of these factors.

Morgan Stanley analysts see pricing down about 1 percent in 2010 and 2011—a 4 percent decrease in commercial lines and a 3 percent increase in personal lines.

Right now the industry has plenty of capital, reserve redundancy and operating profits, Morgan Stanley said.

The outlook for investors puts p&c excess capital at more than $100 billion, using a metric of premiums to surplus ratio. The amount is at an all-time high, Morgan Stanley said.