Workers compensation injuries are expensive to business owners in so many different ways.  The most obvious is down time or lost business due to the fact that your injured employees are not able to work while they are recovering from an injury.  But since workers compensation insurance policies are experience rated, there are the increased costs of workers compensation insurance as a result of your losses.  In addition, it has been proven that injuries and illnesses cause increased absenteeism, decreased productivity and reduced morale among the non-injured workers.  But among all of the workplace injuries, some in particular are more costly than others.  Read on to see if your company is at risk for any of these types of injures.  If so, now is the time to take concrete steps to help prevent them from happening.

The following 5 types of injuries account for 72% of all the direct workers comp costs for employers.  The costs for these types of losses total $35.7 billion dollars each year in the U.S.  They are, overexertion, fall to the same level, fall to a lower level, bodily reaction, and struck by an object.  I would suggest that you take a moment to carefully think about each one of these types of accidents and try to envision how one might happen to one of your workers.  Once you have done this, think even more carefully about ways in which you could establish procedures or rules that would help to prevent that type of accident.

Of course you don’t have to go it alone in this process.   I recommend that you carefully consider which workers compensation company that you choose to purchase your insurance from because they are all very different when it comes to loss control and safety programs.  Many of the companies that offer only workers compensation insurance and no other lines of insurance policies will have more generous loss control and safety offerings.  The U.S. Department of Labor says that employers can save $4 to $6 for every $1 spent on safety and health programs.  In addition, workplaces with successful safety and health management systems are usually able to reduce injury and illness costs by 20% to 40%.  With loss productivity from injuries and illnesses in the U.S. costing companies an estimated $60 billion per year, you can see why taking some time to look into better safety and loss prevention programs for your employees can pay off big.

So check in with yourself on these most costly types of injury causes, then check in with your workers compensation insurance company to see what they can offer you to help you prevent these types of losses.  If you find that your insurance company is not particularly helpful, or if they don’t have a rich offering of tools and knowledge to help you prevent more injuries, then I suggest you start looking for another workers compensation insurance company.

At Clinard Insurance Group, we represent a number of workers compensation insurance companies who specialize in this type of coverage only.  They have ways to help you reduce and prevent injuries in the first place, and they also have tools and knowledge to reduce the overall costs of injuries once they occur.  Give us a call, toll free at 877-687-7557 and put us to work for you today to lower your workers compensation costs, both now and in the future.

I have written a few articles about the nasty sneakiness of the insurance industry’s consent to rate letter.  If you have missed those articles, please remember the most important point:  If you get one from your insurance company, do not blindly sign and return it.  You are just giving them carte blanche to charge you far more than you probably will need to pay for your insurance policy.   In this article I want to point out one more sneaky aspect of this form letter than can mislead insurance consumers.

First a quick background on the North Carolina consent to rate form and why it exists in the first place.  In NC, the rates for homeowners insurance and auto insurance as well as many other types of insurance policies, are filed by the rate bureau and then approved, or rejected, by the NC Department of Insurance.   Generally speaking, these rates are established as the maximum rate that can be charged to the consumer.  As a matter of practice, almost all insurance companies discount the rates that they charge their customers to some level far below the maximum rate allowed to be charged.  In some cases though, an insurance company may feel that they are unwilling to write insurance for a client that is too risky.  This is because the maximum rate is not high enough for them to feel that they can make money on that account.  When this happens, they are allowed to charge rates higher than the allowed maximum, but only if they get you to agree in writing that you are willing to pay rates higher than the state mandated maximums.  The consent to rate letter, once you sign it, is their permission slip to raise your rates to levels above the maximum allowed by the NC Insurance Department.  This should make it clear that signing a consent to rate letter without checking around for a better rate is almost always going to mean that you are going to be paying far more for your insurance policy than you would otherwise have to pay.

As if it’s not enough that the ramifications of signing this form are not well enough understood, there is also the potential for additional misunderstanding in another section of the consent to rate letter.  Here I am talking about the estimated maximum premium that is shown in the letter.  If you receive a consent to rate letter to sign, you will probably notice that there is a mention of the estimated rate that you will be expected to pay if you sign the letter.  The problem here is that many insurance companies will simply print the new, higher, base rate on the letter.  This base rate often does not include the additional costs of endorsements to your policy that help to make your policy unique to your needs.  Perhaps you added rental reimbursement to your auto insurance policy or you have added back up of sewers and drains coverage to your homeowners insurance policy.  In many cases, the consent to rate letter will show a new price for your policy that doesn’t include these other endorsements and the charges that go along with them.  So you may encounter a double sticker shock, once when you read the letter for the first time and yet another shock when you actually receive your updated, consent to rate renewal policy.

The consent to rate letter is a bizarre outcome of the regulations that North Carolina requires for the insurance rating making process.  It can be confusing and downright misleading.  My advice to anyone who receives a consent to rate letter from their agent is to call their agent right away and try and understand why you are receiving this letter and what other options you may have for your insurance policy.  If you don’t get an answer that suits you, please call us and we will help you find a better solution.

At Clinard Insurance Group, we have many options available to our policyholders as well as to others who are faced with a consent to rate letter decision.  Please feel free to call us, toll free, at 877-687-7557 and we will work to help you explore options that don’t include signing over a consent to rate letter to your insurance company.