I recently wrote an article on the voluntary market policy calendars. I did not want to leave out self-insureds, as I sometimes forget 15% of the market needs to be considered more often in studies, articles and even in my writings.

James Moore

A workers' comp self-insurance calendar may not be as complicated as the voluntary market. You may want to check out the earlier article for more calendar ideas.

Some third-party administrators may supply a self-insurance calendar for their clients.  TPAs process the claims for self-insureds on a cost-per-claim basis. One has to follow the claims more closely, as the TPAs' adjusters are spending money directly out of your insurance budget.

Online access needs to be a necessary component. If you do not have access to your claims online, you will not be able to keep up, plain and simple. The allocated loss adjustment expenses that are not charged to voluntary market policies are charged to your workers’ comp budget.

Employers that have recently become self-insured sometimes receive a sticker shock when they become responsible for ALAE. This third category of payouts must be analyzed as with the other two, indemnity and medical. ALAE can be more costly than those.

Self-insurance calendar dates

If you are having actuaries calculate your loss development factor, they may have certain dates that are critical to your calendar. If you are not having an LDF produced, that is something you should look into after you finish reading this article.

• Pull your workers' comp loss runs every two weeks. Compare them to your previous loss runs to see which claims have experienced reserve increases over a certain amount. Some self-insureds require the TPA to send them an email whenever a reserve increase is more than a given amount. Check with your TPA to see if that is possible.
• Check your TPA’s online current statuses at least monthly, as they are usually in the reserve area of the online file. If not included there, the current statuses will be in the claim notes.
• Keep a subrogation diary to follow any claims that have third-party implications. Subrogation recoveries are pure money refunded back into your insurance budget. This critical area is sometimes missed on loss run reviews.
• Before your actuary calculates your LDF, make sure you have discussed any reserves that concern you with the claims adjusters two months before the LDF calculation. Files with large reserves can take a few weeks to adjust up or down because of reserve authority. Reserves that are too low can harm your insurance program as much as ones that are too high.
• Have a review of your claims with the claims supervisor every six months.  Zoom meetings will usually work.
• If your TPA supplies safety inspections, meetings and advice, use that service at least yearly. Some TPAs charge an add-on fee. You will find that it is worth the service provided in most cases.

Conferences and associations are important

One area that I recommend is going to your state’s self-insurance conference. Every conference I have attended generated ideas and allowed me to further my business relationships with other like-minded individuals. The three I mention now:

• North Carolina Association of Self-Insurers, April 2022. Our home state. I have spoken at this conference.
• Self-Insurance Institute of America Inc., October 2022. The big national conference.
• PRIMA, the Public Risk Management Association, for governmental organizations, June 2022. A great organization with a state chapter list.

If you are looking for your state’s self-insurance conference, the SIAA link will point you to the state associations.

This is general workers' comp risk management advice. You may have internal budgeting dates that are specific to your organization. The ones that I listed are recommendations for your self-insurance calendar.

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.