RISK SURVEYS CIRCULATE

Workers compensation costs, safety and loss control programs, technology, the insurance marketplace and corporate human resources are among the top issues of concern facing risk managers in 1999, according to Liberty Mutual’s Risk Management: Ideas at Work survey released at RIMS. John Ryan, Liberty Mutual’s vice president of commercial marketing, says risk managers are utilizing new technologies and processes — such as the Internet, behavioral loss prevention models and expansive return-to-work programs — to address some of these issues. The survey polled 200 risk managers, a sizeable increase from the 30 to 50 respondents the survey averages.

Survey statistics were encouraging, Ryan notes, in the areas of technology usage. In 1999, 83% of risk managers in companies with 5,000 or more employees use the Internet in their job, compared to 70% of all participants in last year’s survey. “From a research standpoint, that’s a pretty high figure,” Ryan maintains. Across the board, in companies with less than 1,000, with 1,000 to 4,999, and 5,000 and more employees, risk managers eye the Internet as a source to buy and renew p&c insurance within the next five years. Companies with 1,000 to 4,999 employees were most interested in using the Internet’s e-commerce possibilities. “It makes sense when you think of these companies. They don’t have large risk staffs but are big enough companies to be risk weary. They want to use all of the efficiencies available to them,” Ryan reasons.

Risk management awareness of the availability of integrated risk products is rising considerably. 64% of risk managers have looked at integrated risk, a staggeringly high 81% in companies with 5,000 or more employees.

There is resistance to integration of risk portfolios, Ryan suggests. “The redundancy of human resource and risk management is a concern. There is a resistance in some organizations to integration by some individuals because of fear of job loss. That’s why so many of these programs are slow to be developed.”

RIMS rates Quality

Also released at RIMS was the preliminary report from the annual Quality Scorecard sponsored by RIMS and Quality Insurance Congress (QIC) which polled risk managers’ ratings of the service provided by the North American insurance industry. The early results show a small increase over last year’s alarming results, the overall industry performance posting a 2 point rise from last year’s 68 out of 100 score to this years 70. Brokers rose one point registering a 74, carriers and reinsurers stayed level at 67 and third-party administrators posted a small boost from 64 to 66. The poll represents 4,782 risk manager evaluations, three times last year’s 1,700 responses.

Most telling from the early returns is a particularly low performance score attributed to carriers in the areas of communication and innovation. Insurers and reinsurers scored a 64 and 63 respectively in the areas of two-way interactive communication and in the area of identifying needs and creating solutions.

RIMS president Susan Meltzer says it is early yet to criticize carriers for their score not improving over the year. “We have heard anecdotally that a number of brokers and insurers have established programs to deal with the quality concern. I don’t know if the industry is ignoring the report or if it’ll be time before these programs are reflected in the scores,” she says.