Risk Management
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Risky Business People: Study Finds 1 in 8 Workers Bring Potential Peril to Their Company
Organizations need to recognize the advantages and disadvantages of behavioral risk of all employees. Doing so allows an organization to manage risk in a constructive way, according to a study published by SHL, an Atlanta-based talent management company.
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To Deal With Superstorm Sandy's Aftermath, SHRM, OSHA Offer Key People Management Strategies
The Society for Human Resource Management and the Occupational Safety & Health Administration offer answers to pay, leave and preparedness questions.
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Managing Reputation Risks Key to Organization's Success: Study
The report, “Reputation Review 2012,” prepared by Oxford Metrica and sponsored by Aon P.L.C., suggests there is an 80 percent chance of a company losing at least 20 percent of its value in any single month over a five-year period due to a reputation crisis.
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Behavior, Environment Can Be Signals of Potential Workplace Violence
The challenge for employers and their workers, of course, is determining how best to weight identification of warning signs against the limitless variations of context and severity that are inherent to real-life applications.
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Workers' Comp Prices Increasing as Market Hardens
Employers are exiting workers' comp guaranteed-cost policies that have fixed costs and taking on greater risk by purchasing loss-sensitive plans with lower premiums but higher deductibles, market experts say.
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N.Y. Universities to Test Self-Funding of Student Health Insurance
Allowing schools to self-insure their student plans, officials said, should reduce the expenses incurred by students while allowing schools to maintain adequate coverage.
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Workers' Compensation Rates for Employers Likely to Increase
In general, the 'cream of the crop' among guarantee-cost accounts are experiencing price increases ranging from about 5 percent to 7 percent, with some 10 percent increases, particularly in the Midwest.
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Fewer Employers Match Defined Contribution Plan Deposits: SHRM Analysis
Of 550 employers surveyed in SHRM's study of employee benefits programs, slightly more than two-thirds indicated that they currently match their employees’ contributions, down from 75 percent five years ago.
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Employee Benefits Broker Hylant Group Acquires Employee Benefits Agency AGIS
As a result of the acquisition, AGIS clients will now have access to the full range of resources available to them through Hylant's employee benefits practice.
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Workers' Compensation Audit Reviews Can Reveal Costly Errors
Employers that are looking to reduce comp premiums find clerical slips that can cost them dearly.
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Health Insurers to Return $1.3B to Policyholders Under Health Reform Rules: Kaiser
The refunds are the result of provisions of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act that took effect in 2011 which limit medical loss ratios, the amount of premium dollars health insurers can reserve for profit and administrative costs.
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Obese Workers' Body Mass Data Aids Treatment
Despite the fact that one in three U.S. adults is obese, claims adjusters often do not ask claimants about their height and weight during the initial intake process of a workers' comp claim, employers and consultants say.
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Obesity Problems Weigh on Workers' Comp
Not only are obese workers comp claimants likely to miss more work days than healthy-weight co-workers with similar injuries, obese workers are likely to have higher medical costs and are more likely to become permanently disabled, research has shown.
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Oklahoma Bills Would Allow Employers to Opt Out of State Workers' Comp System
If approved, Oklahoma would become the second state to adopt an alternative workers comp system. Texas has operated a similar opt-out system since 1913.
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Workers' Comp Assessments 5 Times Higher for N.Y. State Employers: Analysis
The average premium assessment among 32 states that impose the taxes is 4.2 percent. In contrast, New York state employers pay assessments totaling 20.2 percent of their premiums.
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Magazine Pans 'Mini-Med' Plans
A total of 3.9 million people were covered by such plans as of January, according to Consumer Reports.
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Aon Revenue Surges to $11.29B Largely on Hewitt Purchase
Revenue for its human resources solution unit increased 113 percent to $4.5 billion.
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Amendments to FMLA's Military Leave Provisions Proposed
The Labor Department said the proposal released Jan. 30 implements amendments to the military leave provisions of the FMLA made by the National Defense Authorization Act of 2010.
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EEOC Actions, Enforcement Trends Focus of Report on Agency
The report noted that the agency identified combating systemic discrimination as a top priority in a 2006 task force report.
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Availability, Pricing of Coverage Main Concerns for Insurance Buyers: Survey
The issue is particularly challenging for buyers with large natural catastrophe and supply chain exposures, according to the survey of the 25 member firms of the Independents, an international coalition of privately owned insurance brokers and risk management services firms.
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Appeals Court Overturns Most of Dismissal in Same-Sex Harassment Suit
More men are alleging sexual harassment in the workplace, a trend many attorneys expect to continue.
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Report: California Program has Little Effect on Worker Injuries, Fatalities
While safety standards listed under the state Injury and Illness Prevention Program typically improve safety, the commission said it's unclear whether state mandates cause employers to be safer than companies that voluntarily implement such practices.
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Top 5 Workplace Injury Causes Make Up 72 Percent of Direct Workers' Comp Costs: Analysis
Overexertion—or injuries caused by lifting, pushing, pulling, holding and carrying—costs businesses $12.5 billon in direct annual expenses and accounts for more than 25 percent of the national burden, according to Liberty Mutual's Workplace Safety Index.
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Analysis: Employment Class Actions Continue to Raise Firms' Financial Exposures
As a result of two key rulings, class actions are 'not dead or blocked, rather they're reforming and morphing into different iterations,' says one expert.
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Court: Comp Benefits Due to Restaurant Manager Despite Being Smoker
Edmondo Bemis—who smoked for 30 years according to the appellate court's ruling—eventually filed for workers' comp benefits, claiming that his work injury worsened until he needed the surgery and that he was totally disabled.
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Study Notes Medical Malpractice Insurance Market to Evolve with Health Care Changes
Changes in health care delivery will drive changes in the marketplace, including an ongoing shift from physicians practicing alone or in small groups toward practicing in multispecialty and multistate physician networks, or physicians working in practices purchased and operated by hospitals and...
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DC Assets Eyed By Investment Giants
With their sights set firmly on the trillions of defined contribution plan assets expected to move into customized target-date funds before the end of the decade, Bridgewater Associates LP and AQR Capital Management LLC are looking to make sure their risk-parity and hedge fund strategies are...
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Empire Blue Cross Changes Course on Health Plans
The decision is being greeted with relief by brokers and small businesses. An estimated 20,000 companies, covering as many as 250,000 workers and their family members, use the plans being discontinued by Empire.
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Background-Check Tool Keeps Tabs on Sex Harassment Cases
Since mid-2010, the latest technology tool by ebosswatch.com has been nearly as popular among human resources and hiring managers as it has been with job seekers.
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OSHA Tightens Its Fall Protection Rules
The new directive states that all residential construction industry employers must protect their workers who are engaged in work at six feet or more above lower levels by conventional fall protection systems or by other fall protection measures.
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Wellness Programs Adapted for Workers' Comp
One consultant adds that employers also should optimize employee use of established wellness offerings, such as weight-loss or smoking-cessation programs that otherwise may be underutilized.
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Legal Experts Stress That Social Media Background Checks Create Risks
Performing an Internet search on a job applicant is akin to interviewing them, according to a lawyer who spoke at a session on social media at the annual Risk & Insurance Management Society Inc. conference in Vancouver.
