Insurance Agent

How Workers Comp Underwriters Evaluate Level of Risks

An underwriter evaluates workers’ compensation insurance risks to determine whether a risk meets an insurance company’s coverage guidelines. Besides finding the right insurance, an underwriter considers risks associated with the work environment, equipment, and work-related travels.

To effectively evaluate risks, underwriters follow a detailed process to get information and then analyze it before giving feedback to an insurance carrier. 

This article looks at how workers compensation underwriters get information while evaluating levels of risk.

They Evaluate The Risks

A workers’ compensation application has questions that need to be filled out and which help identify potential loss or work injury.  By looking at the answers given, an underwriter gets information on the classification, acceptability, and price of a risk.

Go Through Safety Records

Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) records accident logs. It requires employers with more than ten employees to keep a record of severe work-related injuries and diseases. These records are maintained for five years at the work site, and an underwriter can access them. They help worker’s compensation underwriters understand the safety of the work environment and possible hazards and dangers.

Read Inspection Reports

In a workplace, an inspection report is a significant maintenance report as it shows a machine, work environment, or materials within the workplace are safe for employees. Inspection personnel give a detailed account of inspection priorities, dates, and timelines. 

When workers’ compensation underwriters go through these reports, they get an idea of the hazards within the work environment before injuries or illnesses occur. With this information, they can give a clear picture of the risks to workers comp insurance companies.

Verify Experience Rating Worksheets

The EMR worksheets help workers compensation underwriters determine possible future risks and policy premiums. These sheets show previous workers’ compensation claims by looking at classification codes and claims. EMR sheets give accurate information from prior experiences, and an underwriter will evaluate this information to develop ways to prevent accidents, as these ratings can affect the overall premium costs.

Examine Loss History

After an employer gets workers compensation insurance for their workers, their responsibilities towards the workers begin. Insurance companies provide Loss Run reports depending on which state one lives. These reports come from an employer’s insurance company, and for documentation purposes, it’s requested in written form. It has the insured’s name, description of injury or illness, payout to the insured, and whether the claim is open or closed.

A Loss Run report equips underwriters with details of types of past claims, frequency, and cost and aids the underwriters in calculating the risk. The premiums amount an employer pays for insurance. The risk goes hand in hand with the premiums. The lower the risk, the lower the premium. Loss history helps employees to evaluate and implement safety programs to reduce the recurrence of injuries and future claims.

Summary 

Details form a significant part of workers compensation underwriters’ work. They review applications, go through several sources of information to evaluate every risk, and help insurance companies decide whether they can provide coverage for employees in a given company.

 

Christophe Rude
Christophe Rude
Articles: 15880

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