Public Risk Management

Millennials In The Insurance Industry With Molly Owen by Public Risk Management Association (PRIMA)

Christopher Mandel is the Director at Sedgwick Institute and a former President of the Risk and Insurance Management Society. 2004 Risk Manager of the Year, Christopher has a commanding experience in the field and a resume too long to list out. He is here to put claims management into a new perspective, describing the new claim strategies that have emerged recently. Claims management processes took a significant directional shift in recent times. Rather than unduly generating bad blood between the parties, claimants have become customers, deserving and worthy of our empathy. The focus of these processes has turned towards recovery and finding the best possible resolution in the shortest time period possible. The goal has become to get the injured worker back to work as quickly as possible, to the mutual benefit of both parties.

Charlie Wund is the founder and President of Agency for Student Health Research. Maintaining close contact with every strata of pediatrics, he believes that controlling the injury risk in schools lies in the more effective utilization of data. Numbers of repeated injuries show that the injury report process in schools is often slow and inefficient. This has very little to do with the amount of care applied, but to what protocols are in place to mitigate the risks of injury. The biggest issue lies in the inadequate communication between the staff members, a gap that the new technologies are able to bridge with much success.

Kevin O’Sadnick is a notable Risk Control Manager with keen interest in controlling the risk in laboratory environment. Understanding the specifics of school labs, he breaks down the safety precautions and procedures necessary for minimizing or neutralizing the risks inside it. To keep everybody free from harm, specific environments rest upon safety measures designed with the specifics of that environment in mind. School Laboratory is the case in point; an academic setting where even the slightest bit of error may cause great damage. If mishandled, the biggest advantage of school labs may turn into its greatest hazards.

Wrongful Claims By The Numbers Since 1990s, there has been a fairly consistent demographic and gender pattern to wrongful prosecution and conviction claims. 47% of these are black, 40% white, 12% Hispanic while 2% accounts for the rest. As for gender, 91% of the claimants are men and 9% are women. Homicides and sexual assaults are the most prominent of crimes that receive claims, 43% and 27% respectively. The average time a claimant served in prison is 14 years. Witness misidentification is the single most significant contributor to false convictions. The other is unreliable forensics, many of whose techniques are subjected to error. False confession, although puzzling, is involved in 25%-40% of cases. The Question of Insurance Naturally, with wrongful convictions the insurance side of things inevitably comes into play. Many arguments have been put forward as to what policy is triggered in response to the claim, until it was generally settled on the initial violation of claimant rights. A notable majority of

Our guest is Mollie Werwas, a partner at the Kopon Airdo law firm and a non-for-profit nursing homes litigation representative. She has successfully managed complex insurance coverage issues for both state and national level clients. Having more than an extensive background in public risk management, Werwas unwraps the complex public entities-private contractor relationship and explains the steps public entities should take in order to protect themselves from liability created by the third-party contractors.

Dalene Bartholomew is the Vice President of Probe Information Services Inc. and an Anti-fraud training expert. Having multiple certifications in fraud investigation, she offers the sweeping view of the current workers’ compensation frauds condition while explaining the role of Special Investigation Units. Despite the best efforts, workers’ compensation frauds cannot be eradicated. Unfortunately, both employers and workers sometimes try to take advantage of the system, but the encouraging thing is that now we have more means to combat these fraudulent activities. We have seen the change for the better recently.

Widely acclaimed speaker, John L. More is the Director and CEO of Response Law LLC. Having a legal background in defending school and public agencies, he also serves as a senior legal instructor at the company. Sharing his vast experience in the field, John L. More offers insight into school safety network. In controlled environment of schools, it is paramount that everyone know their roles and play in accordance with the rules overseeing them. As far as school-police partnership, each of the two sides should be familiar with how far they can go in protecting the students. But it is not enough to be familiar with their own boundaries; school administrators and SROs also need to be in the know of each other’s limits. Only then can the condition for absolute functioning be met.

Jeff Taxier is the education and training manager at American Technologies Inc. Prior to joining ATI, Jeff accumulated 35 years of experience holding a variety of positions at Allstate. He shares some of his expertise with us today, breaking down the water loss process.

Thomas Johnson is the National Director of IME sales at Genex Services with commanding experience in the Independent Medical Examination industry. With a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering, Johnson acquired an MBA at Oxford University, only to found Generations IME Consulting. Business sustainability expert, he shares his knowledge on the role of IME testing within the scope of Permaculture, and how it benefits risk managers.

With over 30 years of experience in Risk Assessment and Emergency Planning at every level, Chris Wise has a unique perspective on Physical Security Planning and technology implementation. He is the co-founder of Invictus Consulting, LCC and has served in several security-related advisory committees. From simple locked doors to elaborate military bases, each security system is preceded by detailed plan of its construction. As for organizations, protecting them and their stakeholders means identifying the risks that may potentially impede their efficiency. Security Planning is not the same as Crisis Management Plan. The two should not be confused, the latter being much wider in scope. CMP takes into account all the aspect of an organization and is under the dominion of Business Impact Analysis, while physical security planning is more specific, it tailors towards individual areas of business and its facilities. It exclusively addresses areas of heightened physical damage risk.

Tara Marchand is the director and owner at Providian Therapy with years of experience in public entity healthcare. A graduate of Dalhousie University, she devoted much of her career to the field of Industrial Rehabilitation, along with conducting Functional Capacity Evaluation and Impairment Rating analysis. She explains the role FCE plays in cases of public entity workers symptom exaggeration. For public entities, symptom exaggeration is often an avoidable problem. About 10% of injury cases include some sort of SE, be it a minor strength loss, or indeed a claim of total work disability. Either way, this type of bad data has a significant effect on public entity indemnity costs as well as higher payout for injured workers.

With nearly 4 decades of experience in the insurance field, Richard Spiers has dealt with a myriad of claims nationwide. Northern Illinois University graduate, Richard Spiers is the Vice President at Genesis Management and Insurance Services, as well as a member of the CPCU society. The question of whether to settle every claim or take some of them to court is an interesting one. According to Spiers, there is a reasonable incentive to, if the claimant demands are unreasonable or the facts support the defendant, indeed go to the trial. But before such move gets validated, a few pre-trial aspects must not be overlooked.

On this week’s PRIMA episode Eugene Kipniss and Ben Spear will discuss 2017 cybersecurity trends and threats public risk professionals should be aware of to protect their entities. Eugene is a program specialist for the Multi-State Information Sharing and Analysis Center (MS-ISAC) for their internet security and Ben Spear is a senior intelligence analyst at MS-ISAC. What to expect in 2017? Internet Security with common household items and every day items connected to the internet seemed to be a top of concern of MS-ISAC’s twitter followers after doing a non-scientific poll ie smart TVS, routers, devices that most all come with little to no security features and usually default passwords that are rarely changed by its users which can easily be compromised and used to ‘cyber attack’ other devices within a home. In regards to your business these same devices can be used to pivot into other secure and sensitive areas within your entity. As an organization you have most likely had internet devices within the

The director of risk and safety for the city of Saratoga Springs, Marilyn is responsible for establishing the city’s first professional risk, insurance, and safety program. Recognized as the PRIMA Institute’s 2007 public risk manager of the year, she served as a member of PRIMA director’s board for four years and is here to talk to us about the new PI 17 educational program. PRIMA Institute 2017 is a week-long, intensive educational program serving as a confluence for practicing professionals and newcomers to meet and share their thoughts and experiences in public sector risk management. The entirety of period is optimized for best learning; the daily sessions, including the classes on safety and insurance in risk management, are led by the PRIMA Institute’s experts and leaders in the industry. These sessions are coupled with the early evening conversations among all attendees that will personalize the knowledge acquired during the day, helping the risk managers apply it to their respective environments. The

Tim McCarty is the Associate Vice President of Trident Public Risk Solutions with 25 years of experience serving public entity clients. Obtaining several certifications specific to risk consults listen in as he discusses ways to put an end to driver distractions. In the last year driving fatalities have increased by 8% which is the highest level it has been in 12 years – originally safer roads and safety features within car structures helped decrease driving accidents and fatalities. Poor driving behaviors has become the majority reason there are so many accidents and fatalities on the road. Tim shares some of the most common distractions that drivers have – because of their own choices. The idea that you can multitask while driving is not accurate. As a human being can not fully and mentally do two tasks at once. You might be looking at the road in front of you but as you talk on the phone your focus and attention is on that conversation. You are not fully aware of your surroundings or the environment yo

Addiction Issues and Narcotic Tapering in Chronic Pain Patients with Dr. Branco On this week’s episode we will hear from Dr. Fernando Branco on narcotic tapering in chronic pain patients and addiction issues. He is the medical director at Midwest Employers Casualty Company where he leads a team of medical professionals who working with claims administrators to improve medical care while controlling losses in entities.

This week’s guest Chris Mandel is the director of the Sedgwick Institute and is the Vice President for Sedgwick’s strategic solutions. Chris has more than 25 years of leadership experience in large global corporate management.

This week’s guest is Michael Brave, President of LAAW International, Inc., and the former President of the International Force Institute, Inc. Michael is also the National Litigation Counsel for TASER International, Inc. (as well as a certified Master TASER® Instructor and Legal Advisor to the TASER Training Board). His experience includes involvement in a wide-range of comprehensive law enforcement and private security risk/liability and litigation management services including: training programs, policy development and review, liability/risk assessments, training appraisals, department audits, post critical incident analysis, etc. He has served as a litigation consultant and an expert witness in state and federal civil rights issues. How Many Arrests in the US result in risk of death? For every 71 encounters an officer has in the United States there will be one use of force or potential of use of force. Michael tell us that then for every 1000 use of force there will be one temporal death.

Our guest today is Randy Anderson, he is the founder of E-Three Professional Trainers where they provide customized training to help individuals become more engaged and better equipped to excel in their jobs. Learn a new perspective on time – how it applies in your day to day work schedule but also how to think about it in regards to your life. Time Budgeting What is the difference between time budgeting and time management? If time is money and most businesses and entities budget their money why not budget your time as well? Managing time isn’t really realistic – time is always coming and going. One can only manage the use of one’s time. Sometimes people spend more time on their time systems than actually their work. Time is Life – it is the currency of life. If the price of your time was dependent on how your used it what would be done differently?