Posts Tagged ‘recession’

When the Bond is Broken: Workers Comp and Lay Offs

Monday, April 13th, 2009

Last week Julie Ferguson blogged the interface between workers comp and recessions. For the most part, the news is good: during tough economic times, the frequency of injuries goes down, as workers hunker down and do their jobs as well and as safely as possible. But there is a big downside to downsizing: lay offs raise the specter of injuries – legitimate or otherwise – that are no longer under the employer’s control.
The most effective tools for managing comp losses are in the hands of the employer: by responding to injured workers in a supportive manner, by securing the best available medical care and by speeding recovery through the prudent use of temporary modified duty, employers are able to keep employees positive and productive throughout the recovery process, all the while holding losses to a minimum.
But after lay offs, the employer tool box is virtually empty. There is no trust – most often, there is no relationship – between employer and former employee. The employer cannot manage the recovery process. The bond between employer and employee – whether it formerly was strong or weak – disappears altogether. Laid-off employees often feel anger toward their former employers and could care less about driving up the cost of insurance. In the context of considerable vulnerability and resentment, employees have to find their own path through the disability maze.
Who Manages, Who Cares?
After a lay off, injured employees are on their own. Where once there were (at least theoretically) two supporting pillars – the employer and the insurer – now there is only one. And where the insurer once relied upon the employer to maintain open lines of communication with the employee during recovery, the communication has been severed. The goal cannot be to return the employee to the prior job, as that job no longer exists. The modified goal is securing a release for full duty from the treating doctor, at which time benefits can be terminated.
After lay offs, employers have relatively little leverage in the recovery process. The burden falls almost exclusively on the (usually overworked) claims adjuster. And there is little incentive for the adjuster to aggressively manage the claims of laid off workers. These claims tend to fall through the cracks in the system, resulting in higher than necessary costs.
So here is a little advice to employers who find themselves laying off workers with (real or alleged) work-related injuries:
1. Aggressively manage any injuries reported at or near the time of lay offs. [For details, contact LynchRyan.]
2. Use the leverage of ongoing benefits to keep lines of communication with laid-off workers open.
3. Once laid off employees report injuries, keep in close contact with the claims adjuster. While you cannot offer return-to-work options, you can actively strategize open claims and ensure that the adjuster keeps these claims on the radar screen. This continued collaboration goes a long way toward reducing the ultimate cost of a claim.
Lay offs are traumatic for everyone, employers and employees alike. The bond of trust – such as it is – has been irretrievably broken. But even with the employer tool box stripped bare, there are still opportunities to keep losses at a reasonable level. The key is quite simple: even though workers are no longer employees, management must continue managing. That might sound like a “duh,” but all too often in the world of business, out of sight means out of mind.

Workers comp and safety in a recession

Thursday, April 9th, 2009

Recessions tend to place downward pressure on workers’ compensation frequency, according to NCCI economists who made a recent presentation to the Casualty Actuarial Society. That makes sense. Reduced payrolls means fewer claims. Plus, with potential layoffs looming, some employees may be reluctant to report injuries – which might be part of the reason why there can be an uptick in claim reports after a layoff. The folks at NCCI note that economic expansions are times when frequency spikes – more injuries occur as payrolls climb and new, less experienced employees are added to the work force.
But despite a drop in frequency, safety experts would caution that an economic downturn requires greater vigilance, not less. In a white paper entitled Leading Safety in a Downturn, staff at BST point out that like many other operational areas, safety budgets are often cut and staff are forced to maintain the same standards with fewer resources at their disposal. They also suggest that in a downturn, there is a more complex cultural risk posed by changes in the business: “Even if it is not intended, an organization responding to economic conditions can experience a climate shift that puts a higher focus on production than safety. These shifts are “loud” to the employees who will take away from these experiences long-lasting memories of how they were treated and what they perceive the organization to truly value.”
The authors suggest that a downturn can be a defining moment in a company’s culture, and note that “how you do the hard stuff matters.” They offer five critical actions that business leaders should take to be transformational leaders and to ensure continued safety excellence during a downturn.
More on recessions and workers comp
We’ve talked about workers’ comp and recessions before, specifically, the impact on claims. We cull out this quote from a California study of prior recessions:

“In a six-state study, researchers noted that “…recessions increase back-end cost drivers (i.e., increase the cost per claim) to a greater extent than they increase front-end cost drivers (i.e., increase the number of claims). They state that recessions are ‘characterized by increased use of the system, longer duration claims, and more frequent and larger lump-sum settlements.'”

In a prior post, Down the Rabbit Hole: The Economic Crisis and Workers Comp, my colleague Jon also talked about some other aspects of the current economic scenario that are playing out in workers’ comp. These include the impact of the economy on the illegal immigrant work force, the fact that older workers may be forced to work longer since retirement funds have been destroyed, and the downward pressure that poor investment returns are putting on insurers.

Workers compensation and recessions

Wednesday, May 14th, 2008

Are we in or headed to a recession? Each of us might have our own opinions based on the industry we work in, the number of times we have to fill our gas tank during the week, and the area of the country where we live. According to the economic cognoscenti, the jury is still out – some industry insiders say yes while others disagree. At least some industries say they are in a recession and in a recent survey, nearly 80% of affluent Americans believe a recession has already hit the U.S.
What would a recession mean for workers compensation? A few weeks ago, Insurance Journal looked at the issue of recession and its impact on insurance as viewed by independent agents in various sections of the country, who offer commentary on both actual and anticipated effects. Some note that it is somewhat unusual to have a recession occurring in conjunction with a soft market. There isn’t much mention in the way of workers comp, except in terms of noting that declining payrolls lead to lower workers comp premiums. Some agents note that significant business curtailment has been in evidence in the housing and construction industry.
The past may be the best predictor of the the future. The Minnesota Department of Labor & Industry compiled a 2002 report on the effects of recession on workers comp as evidenced by various state studies.
Conventional wisdom points to a preliminary spike in claim frequency as employers reduce ranks – there is some anecdotal discussion about an increase in fraud, although most data doesn’t support that. Overall, during a recession the number of claims tends to decline – there are fewer workers, and those workers may be more timorous about filing claims, fearing job loss.
While frequency drops, severity tends to increase. Researchers in MA suggested this might be because businesses find it more difficult to provide light-duty work; also, due to the fact that because more experienced workers are retained, the average injury will be more severe. A California study also noted that recessions may add to claim severity by increasing the time it takes for a worker to find a job.
In a six-state study, researchers noted that “…recessions increase back-end cost drivers (i.e., increase the cost per claim) to a greater extent than they increase front-end cost drivers (i.e., increase the number of claims). They state that recessions are ‘characterized by increased use of the system, longer duration claims, and more frequent and larger lump-sum settlements.'”
Minnesota also reported in some detail on their own state’s experience with a workers comp during a recession, a report which our colleague Joe Paduda discussed at some length.
During a recession, employers should be doing what they should always be doing: preventing injuries from occurring, tightly managing any injuries that do occur, and helping injured workers to recover and return to work as expeditiously as possible. While there is always cause to keep an eye on things during any sudden shift in employment, the stories about an increase in fraud may be overblown. As the researchers in the Minnesota report note, boom times pose a greater risk for a rise in frequency as organizations experience a sudden influx of inexperienced workers.