Unit Statistical Report – The What, Why & When

To achieve lower premiums, you, (or your capable broker), must pay attention to several items.
Chief among them are your open claims. Open claims are considered paid claims until they are finally closed,

(by your overworked claims adjuster).

 

The dollar amount your insurance company has reserved for your claim counts as a loss against your policy, and is reported to the Workers Compensation Insurance Rating Bureau, (WCIRB). It then appears on your Unit Statistical report. This will happen year after year until the claim is closed, but thankfully, it only counts against your experience modification for the first three years.

 

This is all fairly reasonable, and in fact, the insurance companies are required to treat your open claims as paid claims. However, at least two issues here have substantial impact on your Unit Stat report, which means they have direct effect on your premium.

 

The issues are:

 
1)      The dollar amount your Claims adjuster has reserved for the claim is larger than necessary, and
2)      The Claims adjuster has kept your claim open, even after your employee is back to work!!

 

The reasons these things happen:

 
1)      When claims initially happen, the claims adjuster has no idea how substantial the injuries to your employee are. So she sets a claims reserve on the high side, BUT NEVER BACKS IT DOWN!! Example: The employee’s cut, which gets ten stitches, is treated as a $50,000. claim. Does this make sense?

 

2)      In many cases, the adjuster doesn’t keep up with the employee, or with you, to know when the employee is back at work. And even worse, in some cases, the claims adjuster has every paperwork item he needs to close the claim, but the information just sits on his desk. Does that make sense?

 

As they say, “the squeaky wheel gets the grease”. Be the squeaky wheel. How, you say?

Well, either you have to do it, (yea – like you have time for that), or your Broker/Agent does it.

That’s right; this is regular maintenance for your program. And it pays off.
You can positively affect your experience-modification if you do this.

 

One of the best things I hear from an adjuster is when she says: “Oh, I can close this claim”.

And I say, great, could you do so, TODAY!! Thank you, my client will be delighted.

Best wishes for a lower mod.