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 City of Hermosa Beach --- 04-24-01
Quarterly Report on Workers Compensation
Recommendation Receive and File the Quarterly Report on Workers’ Compensation.
Background This quarterly report on workers’ compensation is for the period of January 1, 2001, through March 31, 2001. The City entered into a contract with a new third party administrator effective January 1, 2001.
Analysis Claims expense for the current 2000/2001 fiscal year is currently less than previous years. It is estimated that by June 30, 2001, the claims expense should be approximately $50,000 to $75,000 less than last fiscal year.
Claim reserves (the City’s estimated future liability on current open claims) has increased since December of 2000. The increase in reserves can be attributed to two reasons. First, a few claims in the Police Department are coming close to being closed out and the reserves were increased to reflect the proposed settlements. Also, the prior third party administrator may have underestimated the reserves for some claims. An estimate of the March reserves was made after reviewing the loss data. Initially the reserves were listed in excess of $900,000. After discussing this information with the administrator, adjustments are to be made of approximately $100,000. Staff has scheduled a claims review meeting with the administrator for April 26, 2001 to review each open claim file status and reserve.
*12/00 Broken Neck Claim $175,000 The number of claims reported during the fiscal year is below the average of the prior five years. Over the last five years an average of more than 38 claims were reported. To date, only 14 claims have been reported through March 31, 2001. Cases Reported By Fiscal Year 95/96 54 96/97 36 97/98 30 98/99 47 99/00 26 00/01 14 to date Listed below is a summary of the current open claims. The table shows the claims by department, the date of injury and the nature and type of injury. Clearly the majority of claims received are from the Police Department. This is consistent with the nature of work, consistent with the benefits available to public safety employees, and consistent with other cities’ claims.
Staff is beginning to work on a workers’ compensation claims manual and is planning to provide training to supervisors and managers on procedures for handling claims when they are reported. In addition, the development of an early return to work program is planned to help reduce the costs associated with having an employee miss work due to their injury. Early return to work policies generally include a modified duty policy whereby an employee can return to a modified assignment on a temporary basis while recovering from their injuries. They also include monitoring of medical treatment to ensure treatment is provided timely and appropriate to the injury. Safety training continues to be conducted on preventing back and repetitive motion injuries. Employees in City Hall, Public Works field operations, and the Fire Department were completed during the months of March and April. Training in the Police Department will be conducted later in the calendar year. |
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