Tag Archives: workers comp insurance for home healthcare
Workers comp insurance is important for home healthcare. We advise putting more money in than other industries to cover more WC claims as this industries claims can be volatile; patients not in the right mindset can snap at any time.
If you own home health care agencies in NY State the loss cost assigned by the NY Workers Compensation Rating Board governing the predominate labor class codes for Home Health Care Agencies have decreased by approximately 43% since 2017 for class code 9051,(Home Health Care Non_Professional Employees).
The loss costs rates are released in July each year effective for workers compensation policies that renew after October 1st. Insurance Carriers doing business in NY State can choose to deviate off these published loss costs. They can with either credits or debits to arrive at the workers’ compensation premiums.
At Metropolitan Risk we study which carriers have the best workers compensation rates for Home Health Care Agencies. Contingent on where your agency is located, how big your footprint is and what your current loss history is as denoted by your workers’ compensation experience modification factor you might be able to substantially lower your workers’ compensation insurance premiums.
“Just because the published loss costs are “x” this doesn’t necessarily translate directly to the rates you are paying “
Brandon Mueller, Risk Advisor, Metropolitan Risk
Naturally, you can try and figure all this out yourself. Or, you could give us a quick call and cut right to the chase.
Schedule a quick 5-minute call to evaluate your current situation before you automatically renew the workers’ compensation insurance policy. Reserve Your Consultation by BOOKING TODAY
CCIP or OCIP Workers Compensation claims can cost you a lot.
Contractor Controlled Insurance Program (CCIP) and Owner Controlled Insurance Program (OCIP) are insurance programs that are designed to “wrap up” most, if not all, all of the insurance needs for a project and generally include general liability insurance, workers compensation insurance, builder’s risk insurance and excess or umbrella insurance coverage as well. The owner or general contractor of the OCIP / CCIP purchases workers compensation for all enrolled contractors; relieving them the responsibility of purchasing and providing coverage on the sub contractors workers compensation policy. The insurance company issues a “master” policy to the OCIP / CCIP owner. Each individual sub contractor is assigned an individual policy number. Think of it like a mother with children. The “mother” has the master policy and all of the “children” or sub-contractors, have an individual policy number.
When claims arise, somebody sends the individual contractor’s policy a code. This allows the loss experience to follow the contractor, not the OCIP / CCIP owner. Claims occurring on an OCIP/CCIP project will impact your EMR the same way as claims occurring on non-OCIP work. For this reason, you still need claims management on these claims.
For those who don’t understand the impact of the EMR:
Assigned to your company is an EMR stands for Experience Modification Rating. This tells the state, potential clients, and the insurance carriers how well you are managing your employee injuries. The higher the integer (factor) the worse your workers compensation claims and employee injuries are. Although the OCIP/CCIP provides the workers compensation coverage, these claim statistics follow your individual company irrespective of who actually pays for the loss. Further, the EMR facotr predicates your credits or surcharges on your own workers compensation policy. This EMR factor increases or reduces your insurance costs.
OCIP owner’s insurance company or third-party administrator manages workers’ compensation claims arising out of an OCIP project.
The claim handler gives primary consideration to the OCIP owner and ignores the fact that the individual contractor is also an insured. For this reason we strongly recommend contractors continue to apply their own internal BEST PRACTICE reporting procedures so they can track and maintain their own records internally as these employee injury claims will still impact your organization. Best practice claims procedures were designed to ensure critical information is gathered early on and documented which allows the claims to settle faster and a much lower payout. The longer the delay in reporting the claim, the higher the payout. The payout can increase as high as 40% or more.
By managing claims in a similar way we encourage them to be, this will lessen the financial impact on both the employee and the business. We encourage you to have a point person within your organization who is tasked with closing out every open claim if you are not doing so already.
An action plan should associate with each employee injury claim to be complete. Insurance marketplaces frown upon open claims when you bring your account out to market for price quotes. Further, they impact your EMR adversely as well.
Reporting, monitoring, and closing out all of your employee injury claims.
These are key takeaways respective of OCIP / CCIP programs your company may be enrolled in.
This is irrespective of who is actually writing the claims check. The worker’s comp claims report to the Wrap administrator and will follow your company in the form of the EMR. Your state’s workers’ compensation rating board or the NCCI (National Council of Compensation Insurance) gives you this.
This drives the ultimate cost of your worker’s compensation insurance premiums in the form of either surcharges or credits. If your EMR exceeds 1.2 you may not be eligible to bid on certain federal contracts which has an “opportunity cost.” Some General Contractors may set a maximum allowable EMR of 1.0. No sub-contractor with above a 1.0 can bid on future work with that GC.
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