WorkComp Advisor

Who pays for employee injuries? You do!

Once you understand that you write the checks for your employee's injuries, you realize how critical it is to have a proven process in place when an employee suffers an injury.

Claims adjusters are buried under heavy caseloads. Add Managed Care to the mix and your employee's injury management is often outsourced to a case management company.

You just can't notify the insurance company your employee was injured and expect them to handle the case properly. You must have a proven process in place to minimize the cost of the injury and expedite your injured employee's return to work.

If all this isn't enough, an Albert Einstein would have trouble with the Experience Modification Rating formula!

Fact: You pay $2 to $3 back to the insurance company for every dollar you pay out for your employee injuries. Each injury results in the most expensive financing contract you have in your business.

You have Workers' Compensation for only two reasons:
1) The law requires it.
2) Workers' Comp spreads the true cost of employee injuries out over time.

You pay Workers’ Comp premiums. Then, you pay–again–for almost all of your claims.

  • You pay for employee injuries through lost dividends and return of premium.
  • You pay increased costs because your Experience Modification skyrockets.
  • You pay for lost productivity.
  • You pay for poor morale among the unhurt employees who fill in for the injured employee.
  • You pay for increased stress for management and staff.

You're going to be overcharged

With so many hands tinkering with your Workers' Compensation Insurance, chances are you're going to be overcharged. Consider just how many people are involved in figuring out your Workers' Compensation charges:

  • • Insurance company underwriter, the one who makes decisions
  • • Insurance company nurse
  • • Underwriter's assistant
  • • Employer
  • • Claims adjuster
  • • Employer's staff
  • • Claims assistant
  • • Employee
  • • Insurance company rater
  • • At least two data processing clerks
  • • Workers' Compensation Rating Bureau personnel
  • • Current insurance agent
  • • State personnel
  • • Insurance agency staff
  • • Clinic physicians
  • • Medical specialists
  • • Clinic staff
  • • And quite possibly, lawyers

With all of these people affecting how your Workers' Compensation Insurance is managed, how would it be possible for errors and even major mistakes that cause you to be overcharged not to occur?

Overcharges also arise from:

  • • Clerical errors
  • • Incorrect reporting of payroll figures
  • • Mishandling of on-the-job injuries
  • • Violation of merger rules
  • • Multi-State business
  • • Changing your business
  • • Not taking advantage of available credits
  • • Not taking legally entitled deductions
  • • Sloppy injury management
  • • Botched Ex-Mod management
  • • Misunderstanding of rules
  • • Gray area defaulting to the insurance company, not the employer
  • • Putting employees into the wrong job classifications

Why you need a Certified WorkComp Advisor

The complexity of Workers' Compensation makes it vulnerable to mistakes and errors. The Institute of WorkComp Professionals provides:specialized training, certification testing, certification updating every three years, continuing education program, limited to 350 insurance agencies nationwide.

How a Certified WorkComp Advisor can help you

Eliminating the errors

The Institute of WorkComp Professionals requires each insurance agent to go through extensive training before earning Certification. But, that's not all. They are also trained to read the "fine print" and know the rules.

Certified WorkComp Advisors know the entire Workers’ Comp System. They know that each part is riddled with potential errors––audit, Experience Modification factor, back-to-work programs, employee classification, injury handling and more.

With more than 600 different employee classifications, is it surprising that errors occur? What is surprising is that insurance agents don't catch them. But they don’t because they’re not trained to find them, causing employers to pay more for Workers‘ Compensation Insurance than required.

Certified WorkComp Advisors are required to keep up-to-date on the many rule changes and to continue their Workers’ Compensation education to maintain Certification.

A Certified WorkComp Advisor offers these benefits:


  • Identifies errors and submits them for correction
  • Locates Experience Modification mistakes and follows up to correct them
  • Verifies audit to identify and correct mistakes and errors in preparation for insurance company auditor
  • Obtains refunds for "Money left on the table"
  • Helps employers establish a process for reducing costs and eliminating future errors
  • Helps employers in the hiring process, where Workers' Compensation problems start
  • Works with the employer to prevent the causes of injuries
  • Creates a process to get injured workers back-on-the-job quickly and fairly
  • Knows and understands the complicated Workers' Compensation system

Reproduced, with permission, from http://www.workcompprofessionals.com