|
Worker's Comp Loss Control Specialty Agencies Find New Opportunities By RON LENT California lawmakers have churned out more legislation to reform the state's troubled $9 billion workers' compensation system. "These developments have further strengthened the need for a specialty niche to reduce workers' comp costs that often an insurance company, with seemingly sophisticated loss control functions, is unable to supply. These statements, from loss control executive Jack S. Kanner who is CEO and Dir of operations for the PSR® Corporation. PSR® a California Corporation for over a decade, (also known as Professional Safeguard Resources®), has programs in Professional Safeguard Response. It is a risk control safety engineering firm specializing in the reduction of workers' compensation injury losses through employee work behavior modification . "It has been distinguished with public entities across California and the U.S. often with work environments that don't readily lend themselves to redesign". Interestingly, the California Senate industrial relations committee recently passed AB 3277, a workers' comp measure which permits agents and brokers to place public entities workers' comp in the private insurance market. AB 3277 awaits consideration on the Senate floor, following lawmakers' summer recess. PSR's Director states as follows "… PSR® is already providing specialized loss control educational training services to dozens of public entities from Federal Dept. of Energy facilities such as Lawrence Livermore National Labs. to municipal Fire and Police Departments across California This senate measure creates even more need for industry specific loss control.. We're in an era of workers' comp reform and insurance company downsizing. There are new workers' compensation laws for high hazard, high modification rated employers, insurers and self-insureds . . . and that leads to more need for those extremely specialized in workers' compensation cost containment. PSR® is unique and has a sole source designation from many of its governmental clients. It is quite different from insurers' loss control divisions and competitors by providing job specific loss injury prevention training where the workplace environment is changing constantly and ergonomic redesign has limitations." PSR® dispatches a team of work safety specialists to a client's job site. These specialists "live" with a client's employees for "a period of time" to experience their physical, physiological, and psychological stresses at work. They study how employees perceive and perform their job tasks and how their performance needs might influence the injury statistics. Each occupation has a differing performance need and the PSR® staff experience the work in the same terms as the specific work arena does. Based on this `hands-on' experience PSR® puts together a specialized job-specific work behavior training program which imprints a career response pattern of "…how the correct work experience feels if it is making the employee stronger, as opposed to breaking the employee down." This is the company mantra. PSR also provides supervisor and management recommendations and training on specific practical techniques and equipment that can be used to assist the employees in injury avoidance skills. " The PSR® executive pointed out, "Insurance company executives tell me that we are the only loss control specialty agency that they know of that works job-specifically to modify employee behavior to help an employer cut its workers' comp costs. We don't necessarily change the workplace environment." PSR's Approach He focused on PSR's approach. "We go in there and change the risk environment by modifying work behavior, particularly when reengineering is not possible or plausible." Mr. Kanner used back injuries to illustrate how PSR® serves its clients, in the Silicon Valley. "One PSR® client, the City of Sunnyvale, recently was named a `model managed' city by the President when he was visiting there earlier this year. With the help of PSR®, that city reduced its high loss department's injuries [in this case the public safety - police division] by 82% in one year. At the same time, the other half of public safety did not receive the program and its injuries increased by 35%." Since going into business in 1984, PSR® has established a client base of upwards of 150 entities, "and our varied client list is growing" states its director. PSR® clients include insurance organizations such as AON, Johnson & Higgins and Fireman's Fund; more than 50 public entities (e.g., cities such as San Jose, Oakland, Riverside, San Diego, Escondido, Pasadena, San Leandro, Sunnyvale, Livermore, and Alameda; counties such as Ventura and Marin; federal agencies and facilities such as the University of California administered research complex at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories) and energy and utility corporations (notably Pacific Gas & Electric Co. and Chevron). The director of PSR® engineering states that "this agency's last two dozen clients, from Fireman's Fund Insurance Co. and Johnson and Higgins Brokers to the City of Pasadena and Riverside, have engaged our services as a `sole source provider and stated as such. They find that no other loss control specialty agency does things the way we do." An unnamed Fireman's Fund client received what was succinctly described as a specialized loss control service for this high-modification rated employer. The company, a large beverage distribution, spring water company couldn't re-engineer its workplace environment i.e. the route delivery and sales, so PSR® reengineered employee work behavior:" A Johnson & Higgins official singled out PSR's "unique approach." PSR went in and "experienced the physical, physiological and psychological stresses of the job and imprinted job specific career work behavior. The costs and results are both reasonable and impressive." For further information, contact PSR® and its operations director at (415) 388-2393 |