What do we discuss with our colleagues and peers at meetings, conferences and around the proverbial water cooler? What are the topics we read about in trade publications or LinkedIn posts?  What causes risk managers and those who develop claims’ management strategies to question, ponder and explore? 

The answers are as diverse as the questions posed. As we near 2019, the issues, challenges, and opportunities facing the workers’ compensation industry continue to proliferate. However, we won’t arrive at solutions by isolating our ideas or approaches.  Dialogue, discussion, and yes debate will help us achieve the solutions that benefit the industry, it’s people, and most importantly, injured workers. 

Over a series of several blogs, I will take a deeper dive into some of the most complex, yet critical issues we face as an industry with regards to resolution settlement strategies and concerns.  It is written for risk managers to give them some additional perspectives about the process and how it intersects and impacts their roles and responsibilities.

The issues we’ll be discussing in the coming series include:

• Developing an effective claims resolution philosophy.  Is it best to keep claims open when an employee continues to work for an organization or find ways to fairly settle and close?
• Improving settlement authority.  What are the ways to enhance the settlement authority processes? How can we empower our teams while maintaining necessary controls?
• Expanding the communication with actuaries to improve outcomes.  How can we best facilitate communication with actuaries to determine if they have insight into actions that have a positive direct impact on claims results (such as identifying those claims which, when settled, will have the most significant impact on the reserve loss development patterns, etc.)?
• Improving the claims settlement calculation process.  How can risk managers help their employers clearly understand the factors that go into calculating settlements and the long-term benefits of settling claims?  

We invite you to join in the discussion and add your thoughts, ideas, and expertise.