Claims costs

DSM, working initially with DuPont and then later with Shell, have developed a process using butadiene and carbon monoxide feedstocks to make caprolactam without ammonium sulfate production in the mid-1990s. Called Altam, the process employs four steps - carbonylation, hydroformylation, reductive amination and cyclization. DSM claims cost reductions of 25-30%, simplified plant operations and lower energy consumption, but the process never reached commercial scale. 

Estimates frequently appear indicating that as many as 50% of work injuries and illnesses and 60% of total claims costs are ergonomics-related. 

Discussions were held with several safety directors to determine how they would respond to estimates of 50% of the number of workers compensation claims and 60% of total claims costs being ergonomics-related. There was general agreement that those estimates were sound, but two cautions were expressed Estimates are applicable if the statistical sample is large enough and variations by industry could be significant. 

What does all this mean Actuaries have established that workers compensation claims costs, payrolls, and rates for an insured s occupational classes, over time, form a statistical base from which to compute expected claims experience. 

If it was possible to obtain accurate and current workers compensation claims costs, a trending of that data would be the best performance indicator for most companies, since the data would be expressed in financial terms. That is a language that managements understand. Unfortunately, the actual cost of individual claims is not immediately known. For claims reported in a given year, the actual costs may not be finalized for as long as six or more years. 

Still, workers compensation costs present opportunities for computation as performance measures. With the help of insurance personnel, fairly good estimates of the expected claims costs for an ensuing year can be made, provided that there are no catastrophic occurrences. With that data, interesting and useful performance indicators can be computed. Some examples follow. 

Rational consumers would not redress warranty claims beyond f", even when they have a valid claim, because their claim costs exceed potential claim benefits. This analysis has important implications for the firm because it will tend to reduce the quantity of claims which will be made against the firm and, hence, the costs of the warranty program. 

Figure 10. Consumer claims costs and benefits. (From Flenry N. Amato et. Al. 1976)... 

Note Claims cost is the experienced average cost of claims, accidents, and workers compensation for drivers under one year of service. 

Visit a rehabilitation facility at a local hospital or clinic that helps get injured workers back on the job. Find out how they approach minimizing workers compensation claim costs. 

B. Workers compensation claim costs in relation to standard premium 10 ... 

Worker s Compensation Cost Claim Cost Incurted (dollars per employee) Points... 

Statistics given here on serious injury trending over the last several years derive from macro studies, or may relate to specific industries. But, it must be understood, as my studies have shown, that serious injury experience varies greatly by industry. Data on serious injuries and workers compensation claims costs have been extracted from two primary sources the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) in the U.S. Department of Labor and the National Council on Compensation Insurance (NCCI). 

To determine how such cost increases related to inflation in the economy as a whole, a visit was made through the Internet to http //www.InflationData.com. Using the Inflation Data Calculator provided there, with 1995 having a base of I, a computation indicated that the accumulated inflation from January 1995-December 2005 was 35%. In those years, the increases in average workers compensation indemnity and medical claim costs stood at a factor of approximately 3.5 times inflation. That is significant, deserves attention, and defines opportunities for safety professionals to demonstrate additional value. In addition, data on the cost of serious injuries in relation to lesser injuries have been available for quite some time. Note the following indicators. 

It seems likely that the downward trend evident since the mid-1980s is to a considerable extent attributable to improved injury management, of the type described at Eastern Colliery. The Joint Coal Board has conducted seminars for colliery managers on how to reduce claims costs, and it is well known in the industry that some of the best LTIFRs have been achieved by strenuous efforts to keep the injured at work, on alternative duties if necessary. Joint Coal Board data provide evidence of the extent of this process. Between 1981 and 1992 the proportion of claims which resulted in lost time fell from 86 per cent to 56 per cent Ooint Coal Board 1992, p. 6). What this means is that, whereas in 1981 the great majority... 

Many managers do not understand how claims affect their premiums. Schaapveld (1993) reports that most of the managers he interviewed in his small-scale study were horrified when the effect was pointed out to them. It is thus important for OHS officers to know the details and to be able to demonstrate them to management. The premiums paid are affected by actual claims costs to different degrees in the various Australian jurisdictions, but most jurisdictions are moving towards the situation where, for large employers at least, the premium will be very largely determined by the actual claims experience of the enterprise. To the extent that this is the case, increased claims costs translate directly into premium rises. OHS officers need to understand the way in which premiums are calculated in order to demonstrate this connection. 

One useful step in making decisions about OHS in a particular workplace is to compare the data on work-related injury and disease in that workplace with national, state, province, territory figures for occupations in that workplace and for similar types of industry. This can give an idea of the types of workers most at risk, and the types of occmrences which need to be addressed first. It allows you to benchmark yoiu workplace against other similar ones. For your particular workplace, it is possible to ask your compensation insiuer for a breakdown of injury types, injmy severity, injirry frequency rates, injury duration, and claims costs, and relate these to particular sections or parts of your workplace. 

Figure 12.3 Metals Manufacturing Ply Ltd - departmental compensation costs (the vertical axis shows annual claims costs in 000s)...

The Business Results through Health and Safety Guidebook, a work of Canadian Manufacturers Exporters—Ontario Division and the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board issued in 2001 demonstrates the business case for workplace health and safety and reflects the experience of Ontario businesses. The publication says The average workplace lost time injury in Ontario costs over 59,000. The average lost time workers compensation claim cost is over 11,771. Note If you round up 11,771 to 11,800, you will find that a 4-to-l multiplier was used to get to 59,000. The 4-to-l ratio is recommended in the Guidebook within a cost computation system for employers to use.)... 

For lost-time cases in the period from 1995 through 2011, the combined indemnity and medical claims costs increased about 1.77 times the inflation rate [165 (273 - 180 = 93] = 1.77. 

QBE Aviation s records included a total of sixty-one (61) aerial agriculture aircraft accidents that had occirrred in the period May 2002 to October 2005. However, reliable causation information was available for only 44 of those events. Records on the other 17 accidents were limited to a basic event description and detailed claims cost information for each case. 

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