By Travis Halsted, Loss Control Consultant

As the season of melting snow begins and the use of air movement fans is once again seen, it is essential to determine how the risk of trips and slips resulting in falls in the workplace can be eliminated. According to the 2009 statistics from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 605 workers were killed and an estimated 212,760 workers were seriously injured by falls to the same or lower level (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2014). Occupational fall injuries result in approximately $70 billion spent annually between medical and workers’ compensation costs (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2014). From these staggering numbers the need to prevent this type of injury is high on many safety committee lists.

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By Cindy Boyce, Senior Claims Adjustor

In the majority of Workers’ Compensation cases employees who are injured at work recover and return to work. In some cases employees do not return to work claiming that they are still disabled from the work injury. A small percentage will end up in court and enter into litigation by filing an Application for Hearing. Shortly after the Application is filed, it is processed by the Workers’ Compensation Agency and the employer will be served with an Acknowledgement and Notice of Hearing. Below are a few recommendations that will assist you in understanding the litigation procedure.

1. Once a claim is disputed, the employee may resort to filing an Application for Hearing.

When you are served with the Acknowledgement and Notice of Hearing, you will note the Magistrate assigned to hear the case, the hearing site and the date of the initial pretrial hearing. In most cases, the adjuster will also be served. However, it is recommended that you contact MTMIC upon receipt of the Application to confirm that we have been served.

Once we receive the Application for Hearing, we will retain an attorney to represent your company’s legal interests.

In most cases you will not be required to attend the pretrial or subsequent hearings unless we have notified you otherwise.

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Adverse Pricing Changes

A couple times a month our policyholders call me and ask me about adverse pricing. Their question is, “How did it happen to me, and what are the causes”? While this is not a frequent question, I have to say it is one where the customer is the most concerned and anxious for answers.

My answer to this question first starts with a review of company payroll/growth. Sometimes it is a simple review – the payroll for your company has gone up by 50%. There is no rate increase; your premium increased because your company and its payroll is growing. If there is no increase in payroll or the increase is minor, then we move to the two primary causes of adverse pricing/rate changes. Within these two causes, there can be an impact at your next policy renewal as well as an impact a year or two later.

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By Chris Demeter, Senior Loss Control Consultant

Flammable liquids are used in many different ways. They present unique hazards to the people that use them. Flammable liquids can cause a fire or explosion, and like many other substances, they can also cause serious health effects from overexposure.

Flammable liquids are liquids with a flash point of less than 100F. The flash point is the lowest temperature at which a liquid gives off enough vapor to form a flammable mixture with air. On the NFPA diamond label, a fire hazard rating of three or four denotes a flammable liquid. Other labels used to identify flammable liquids are red with appropriate wording and they usually contain a fire symbol.

The vapors of a flammable liquid often present the most serious hazard. The vapors can easily ignite or explode. Flammable liquid vapors are heavier than air and may settle in low spots, or move a significant distance from the liquid itself.

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Our 2013 financial results have been finalized with our actuary. The good news is that through loss control efforts and claims handling by our policyholders, MTMIC made a small underwriting profit for the year. A small underwriting profit is in line with a primary company goal of keeping our customer’s rates as low as possible. Additionally with some conservative investment of company funds, we added to that bottom line. Sometimes I am asked where do our mutual profits go? There are only two places: 1) a company surplus account and 2) policyholder dividends. Given the size of the profit, we have put the money in the company surplus account. This account provides a buffer if we have a year where the results do not generate a profit – that is, losses exceed our collected premium for the year.

In the workers’ compensation insurance business good results just don’t happen. It takes a wide range of people involved. It takes mutual policyholders who worry about loss control and their individual company claims experience. It takes professional insurance staff providing loss control support services to our policyholders. By the way, at MTMIC, we have one full time field loss control consultant for every 240 policyholders. This is a commitment and focus that no other Michigan insurer can match. Beside the focus of the staff, we provide safety training videos, training documents, ergonomic tools and written safety programs in the tool box to help our policyholders.

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INCLUSIONS:

1. Payroll wages and salaries, including retroactive pay.
2. Commissions.
3. Bonuses.
4. Stock bonus plans — Shares of stock in lieu of cash. (Not stock options)
5. Extra pay for Overtime — less the premium portion. (more…)

By Glenda Moyle, Premium Accounting Manager

Wow, can you believe another year has gone by. And what that means is its final audit time again for our January renewals. When we issued your policy, you gave us estimated payrolls by class codes on which we were to base your premium. The final audit will give us actual payrolls, by class codes, to see if you owe us more premium or we owe you a refund of premium. About half of our policyholde

rs will be going through their final audit in the next couple of weeks. If you haven’t already been contacted by our audit company, The Aprise Group, you will be shortly.

Your renewal packet consisted of all of your renewal documents as well as a sheet titled, “Guidelines for Your Premium Audit.” Please use that document as well as the information in the list of inclusions and exclusions on the back side of the newsletter when preparing for your upcoming audit.

For over 30 years I have been helping you with this process and I continue to be ready to answer your questions.

Patty Allen Sales & Marketing Assistant

As with our renewal process, many departments work together to get the Labor Law Posters prepared for delivery to our 725 policyholders. We provide these posters as a courtesy to all of our insured’s.
The Marketing department begins working on the process approximately six months in advance of the mid-January mailing. Our Loss Control team researches the labor laws to make sure that we have the most current information at the Federal and Michigan level. We then work with our printer to produce a poster in the correct size and font. Once the posters are printed and mailing tubes ordered; the posters are rolled and stuffed into the tubes with the mailing labels affixed to the outside. Additional care is taken so that you don’t receive an empty tube with no posters. We then complete the mailing by affixing the proper postage based on zip code and arrange for a special pick-up by the USPS.

By the time you are reading this article, your company should have received the updated 2014 State and Federal Labor Law posters.

We thank you for your continued business and if you need additional posters, please contact me at patricia.allen@ mtmic.com/blog.

By Donna Motley, Director of Claims

During my many years of handling Workers’ Compensation claims, I’ve dealt with all kinds of injured workers. Two claimants stand out in my mind as being the nicest people, and they sustained the most severe and tragic injuries.

One  case occurred in 1997. A 24 year old father of two (who had a pretty idyllic childhood) went on an early morning run to assist a company semi that had broken down on the side of the highway. The truck was 5-6 feet off the road, on the shoulder, with orange cones and triangles up and flashers on. The driver of a pick-up truck presumably fell asleep at the wheel and hit our insured while he was under the hood of the company truck, tossing him several feet into the highway. The injured worker had to roll himself out of the path of oncoming traffic to avoid being run over. The end result – the injured worker’s left leg was amputated and his right foot was crushed. The amputation was originally below the knee, but due to complications, ultimately ended up amputated at the thigh. At 24 years old, this gentleman was very active, was even a volunteer fire fighter. Yes, he sought the advice of an attorney (although he did not sue), yes he collected money from the automobile carrier of the vehicle that hit him, and yes, Workers’ Compensation insurance has paid (and continues to pay) all of his medical bills. He has a prosthetic leg and has had multiple surgeries on the right foot due to continuing pain – to the point he has asked on more than one occasion that we amputate the right foot.

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With the holidays and the January 1 renewal rush going on, I passed over a couple important staff changes at MTMIC. The good news is that these are changes with people you know and have worked with for years.

First Megan Brown, our Director of Sales & Marketing for the last 6 ½ years was promoted to Vice President of Sales & Marketing. Megan is the field presence and face of MTMIC. Our growth is the net result of Megan’s efficient and effective work. Prior to joining MTMIC Megan spent 15 years as a marketing manager and director in the field of occupational health. Megan obtained her Bachelor’s degree from Michigan State University. She has been active in a variety of associations. Her family including her husband, daughter and son are avid runners competing regularly in half and full marathons.

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Well, at this writing in the middle of December, I’m about fifteen feet from where I used to sit, sort of in a closet/ utility room.

My acquaintances know I have on occasion taken the liberty to comment on life in general; I have enjoyed that aspect of the position over the years and regret that I’ll lose this public forum which permitted my indulgences. Having acknowledged my weaknesses, I’ll try to avoid making bad puns or any other random acts of impropriety as I leave the job I have enjoyed for fifteen years. It may be difficult because after fifteen years you do get an extensive notepad of things better left unsaid.

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Hope you had a wonderful holiday season. For the staff of MTMIC, it went by quickly. With over half of our policyholders renewing on January 1 it has been a busy office time.

File reviews, gathering data, reviewing losses, loss control reports and getting shop operation updates from our policyholders takes time. While it is still too early to give you the “numbers” for January 1, our early indication is that we have renewed about 98% of our policyholders. We will share the final numbers with you next month. A couple industry trends are apparent. Most of your shops are busier now than last year. Not everyone, the results are “lumpy”, yet in aggregate, payrolls look to be up about 8%. Another interesting finding is that many of our policyholders have added a new product line and/or new significant customer. I was surprised how much your shops have changed and adjusted to new products and/or customers. Our policyholders ARE creative and pushers. Not much of this helps you in workers compensation, but the market intelligence is interesting. Maybe one piece of MTMIC trivia. How much payroll do our policyholders anticipate in 2014? A big number – over $1,100,000,000.

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By Donna Motley, Director of Claims

A New Year – new opportunities, new challenges, a chance for all to improve! 

Please remember to promptly report all injuries. Failure to promptly report injuries results in delayed medical treatment and inconvenience for the injured worker. If an employee does not report an injury in a timely fashion, we suggest disciplinary action be invoked.

Authorization to treat, other than the initial visit, should only be given by our office. That would include authorization for continued treatment, testing or referral to a specialist. We can only extend authorization if we have the claim information in our office.

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By Travis Halsted, Loss Control Consultant

Many of you have asked questions as to how you can lower your number of back injuries. While there are many contributing factors to a back injury, there are aspects to investigate that could possibly point to a root cause. After a back injury is reported it is paramount to try to identify any common aspects, such as the task at hand, work areas, and even down to a particular item being produced, that could give details on how the injury occurred and what can be implemented to prevent it from happening again. With the act of lifting being such a common practice, we often tend to do it without thinking of the effects of improper lifting.

Improper lifting can result in a variety of different injuries. Of these injuries a back strain is a very common one that is a result of over-stretching certain muscles. Another injury from improper lifting is a hernia. A hernia is an injury that occurs from continued extreme exertion. With back injuries being involved in 24% of all occupational injuries and illnesses involving days away from work, it is easy to understand why so many companies are looking for fixes to the rising issue. (more…)