At the 2019 NCCI Annual Issues Symposium, Barry Lipton, Practice Leader and Senior Actuary for NCCI discussed a variety of recent NCCI studies. Group Health vs Workers’ Comp Pricing There are some substantial differences in how these plans are regulated. Much of group health is regulated on the Federal side, while workers’ comp is entirely regulated by the states. Both Group Health and Workers’ Comp have provider networks, drug formularies and utilization review. Workers’ comp has fee schedules and a focus on return to work. Group health requires patients to share the costs. The study showed that price differences between
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At the 2019 NCCI Annual Issues Symposium, Jim Guszcza, US Chief Data Scientist with Deloitte Analytics discussed the promise of artificial intelligence and data analytics holds for the workers’ compensation industry. The fearful narrative about artificial intelligence are that computers will eventually become smarter than people and will take over the world. There is also fear that AI could eliminate close to half of employment in the United States. In reality, AI is is allowing computers to do things that humans used to do. Any program that replaces computer function could be considered AI. An example of this is an
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At the 2019 NCCI Annual Issues Symposium, David Priebe, Vice Chairman from Guy Carpenter talked about the upcoming renewal of the TRIA backstop. Prior to 9-11 terrorism risk was included in “all risk” policies. Following those terrorist attacks the insurance marketplace indicated they were uncomfortable with terrorism risks which made securing coverage challenging for some properties and employers. The Federal Government developed the TRIA program as a backstop for the insurance industry in 2002 to provide some level of financial certainty in the insurance and reinsurance of terrorism risks. 9-11 changed the way the insurance industry looked at issues such
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At the 2019 NCCI Annual Issues Symposium, a panel discussed the physicians view of workers’ compensation. The speakers were: David Dietz, MD – moderator Edward Bernacki, MD – Executive Director of Health Solutions, University of Texas Will Gaines Jr, MD – Dept of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, Baylor Scott & White Health Jill Rosenthal, MD – Chief Medical Officer, Zenith Insurance Company There are just over 3300 board certified Occupational Medicine physicians in the United States and 2017 there were over 2.8 million workplace accidents. This means the majority of workplace accidents are not receiving treatment from board certified Occupational
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At the 2019 NCCI Annual Issues Symposium, Robert Hartwig, Professor of Finance from the University of South Carolina discussed how the economy is impacting workers’ compensation. The highlights: The economy and workers’ compensation are strongly linked. Higher employment leads to higher payrolls which is the basis for premiums. We expect 2.6 million jobs to be created in the United States during 2019. The unemployment rate is currently the lowest it has been in 50 years and it is expected to remain low. The workers’ compensation line was greatly impacted by the recession back in 2006-2010. The decline in premiums was
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At the 2019 NCCI Annual Issues Symposium, NCCI Chief Actuary Kathy Antonello gave the much anticipated “state of the line” presentation. The comparisons provided are all 2017 vs 2018 unless otherwise stated. The highlights: Property & Casualty results There was a 10.6% increase in total industry premiums. The growth was fairly consistent across multiple lines. A big factor in this is the tax reform which enabled insurers to bring more premiums onshore rather than offshoring them to captives. Industry combined ratios were 99%. This is an improvement from the 104% ratio in 2017. Almost all lines showed an improvement in
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The 2019 NCCI Annual Issues Symposium was kicked off by NCCI President and CEO Bill Donnell. Behind every workplace injury is a person. In the workers’ compensation industry this is something that we always need to keep in mind in everything we do. Based on surveys of NCCI members, their top concerns for the future of workers’ compensation are: Market dynamics – We are in an unprecedented run of positive results in terms of the profitability of the workers’ compensation line. Because of better data and analytics, we have access to better information than ever before. This access to better
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The Alliance of Women in Workers’ Compensation hosted an event in Huntington Beach, CA focused on helping attendees gain understanding of business financial acumen. The event was held the day before the Executives in Workers’ Compensation Conference. The session focused on helping attendees gain an understanding profit & loss statements (P&L) and and other business financial terms. PROFIT AND LOSS STATEMENT A P&L ( profit and loss) statement is also known as the income statement, statement of operations, or statement of earnings. The four main components of a P&L are: Revenues (also known as the top line) – the billed
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Monumental changes in how and where work is performed creates new risk and safety challenges. This session at the RIMS 2019 Annual Conference & Exhibition examined emerging workplace risks and effective safety strategies to address them. Speakers included: Larry Pearlman, Senior Vice President, Workforce Strategies Practice, Marsh Timothy Martin, Global Health and Safety Manager, Steelcase, Inc. 1. Wearables Ergonomics are a problem across many industries, especially with an aging workforce. Wearable devices measure body stress so that, with injuries, we can determine what happened, how it happened, when it happened and if it will happen again. Different technology like exoskeleton
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The software utilized to operate autonomous vehicles presents a unique risk. On-board sensors, collision avoidance systems and other coordinated operations can create personal data storage concerns. This session at the RIMS 2019 Conference and Exhibition featured discussions about data communication protocols, personal data storage and potential legal liabilities. Speakers included: Kellie Howard-Goudy, Shareholder, Collins Einhorn Farrell PC Craig Hoffman, Director, Risk Management & Safety, Wakefern Food Corp. Traditional risk management practices can inform how we approach risk management for new technologies, including autonomous vehicles. Of course, there are several issues risk managers need to address when it comes to autonomous
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