2021 NWCDC – Leading a Resilient Claims Organization Thru Uncertainty

This was the first session that I set through at the 2021 NWCDC.  The session had two of my favorite workers’ comp people – Rachel Fikes of Rising Medical and Denise Zoe-Algire of Albertsons Companies.  The two other panel members were Tyrone Spears, the City of Los Angeles, and Vickie Kennedy Washington L&I.   You can find out more about the session here including the slides.

Session Description From The 2021 NWCDC Website

(c) NWCDC – authors own work

Is your claims organization culturally prepared to handle the next unexpected (or even expected) crisis around the corner? In this session, experts from the Workers’ Compensation Benchmarking Study will examine eight years of survey results from more than 3,000 claims leaders and frontline personnel to report on what data trends are telling us about claims organization resiliency in our industry. How can challenges such as the pandemic and our industry’s generational shift be used to accelerate systemic resiliency and change? The opportunity for transformational change, or large-scale failure, is upon us.

Learning Objectives

• Understand what corporate resiliency means and why you should manage and measure it across your organization.
• Discover key takeaways from the industry’s largest survey of claims professionals and learn how these responses can help you build a more resilient workplace.
• Identify why claims organization resiliency is imperative for employee peak performance, positive claim outcomes, and corporate success/competitive advantage.

My Notes

My take – The Workers Comp Benchmarking Study that Rising Medical sponsored invited ALL claims staff including the frontline adjusters.  Most insurance surveys target just the C-Level and some of the managers.  Rising Medical invited me to a Workers Comp think tank in 2015 that included some of the industry Workers Comp heavyweights.

Denise – from the panel – recognized me in the crowd and came up to personally welcome me to the conference and the session.  She and Rachel are always so professional.

That is why this survey was different.   Workers Comp clam adjusters had their say, which was unique to this study.

Some of the results from the survey were:

• 2020 survey was the claims leaders responding to the 2019 claim front liners survey.
• The best claim performers said their companies
  • Invest in people
  • Invest in better technologies to assist them in claims handling

Tyrone – flexibility, and adaptability are key, City of LA has taken a more modern approach

Denise – a bottom-up approach is key, not top-down

Vickie- culture changes = attracting more people to the industry

Best claim performers = Advocacy based claims model – reduced from 80% to 73% over the last two years

Best claim performers have a closure rate of 101% – in other words, they are reducing their claim numbers

Claims training – Best Claim performers = 51%  Lower claim performers = 33%

Vickie – measuring individualized task-oriented measures, accountable to things they can control

Millennials have a lower level of loyalty to their employers.

Telework for claims is now permanent along with flexible work schedules

Specific state law training by outside legal experts was important to the Best performers

Only 25% of the surveyed adjusters/managers had a social determinant of health program in Workers Comp claims.

A large number of third parties exist to increase technology advancement in claim departments including some of the vendors at the conference booths.

After the session – I asked Rachel if there were any plans to do another survey of the frontline claim handlers like the one in 2019.  She said yes, but not right away.

This was the best 2021 NWCDC session that I attended.  The benchmarking survey sets the session apart from some of the other ones.

This blog post is provided by James Moore, AIC, MBA, ChFC, ARM, and is republished with permission from J&L Risk Management Consultants. Visit the full website at www.cutcompcosts.com.

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