The Five Secrets To Cutting Your Workers Compensation Costs

I have in a roundabout way covered a few of the secrets (that are not so secret) to cutting your company's Workers Comp costs. The five are:

• Timely reporting of the injury to the insurance carrier/TPA
• Medical network in place
• Return to work plans for an injured employee
• How the employee is treated by the employer
• Understanding Your Premium Audit

If you look over the last few posts, the first three have been covered. I will cover #5 - Understanding Your Premium Audit in the next post or two.

Five Keys to Saving On Workers' Comp Costs

The mainstay of all my presentations is the (used to be three) "Five Keys to Saving on Workers' Compensation Costs." This is a time-tested list that will reduce Workers' Comp costs for any employer in any jurisdiction. These come from over 20 years of analyzing claim costs, and a study that I performed with over 7,000 Workers' Compensation files. They are:

1. Timely Filing of the First Report of Injury - within 24 hours


2. Physician's Network - where does the employee treat?


3. Return to Work Program - prevents large cases


4. Employee Treatment by Employer, Doctor, Adjuster - reduces malingering and fraud


5. Making Workers' Comp a Priority - do you just write a check to the TPA or carrier?

I found that in a study of the 7,000 Workers' Compensation files, that if an employer does not do just one of #'s 1 - 4, the claim cost will increase by 400%. And yes, if none of the first three are done properly the employer will pay 1,200% more than a similar employer that is attending to all of the first three of the five.

I will cover all of them individually through the next five weeks. I will be releasing a manual in the next month that goes even deeper into detail.

Tomorrow - How is Your Workers' Compensation Premium Calculated?