There is a moment at every social gathering that those of us in this industry have learned to dread. Someone asks what you do. Now, regarding that question I normally provide the answer that is my stock in trade: As little as possible. But then you have to get serious. You have to say it. And you watch yourself do the thing. You start with “insurance,” which is already a…
A meaningful adjuster course review begins where many course comparisons stop: not with the number of credit hours, the convenience of the platform, or the promise of a completion certificate, but with the quality of decisions an adjuster can make after training. In workers’ compensation, those decisions affect medical access, wage replacement, return-to-work planning, litigation exposure, employer confidence, and an injured worker’s trust in the process. A course can satisfy…
A claim can be technically compliant and still be poorly managed. A compensability decision may be correct, reserves may be documented, and required letters may be issued on time, yet the injured worker may not understand the process, the employer may lack a return-to-work plan, and an avoidable attorney referral may already be taking shape. This claims quality assurance guide addresses that gap: how to assess claim handling in a…
An injured employee who hears nothing after reporting a claim will fill the silence with assumptions: that the claim is being denied, that medical care will be delayed, or that returning to work means being pushed beyond safe restrictions. A strong claims resolution communication guide prevents that uncertainty from becoming a claim-management problem. It gives adjusters, nurse case managers, employers, and provider partners a repeatable way to explain what is…
A claims professional can now summarize a medical record, draft a claimant communication, identify reserve anomalies, and surface return-to-work barriers in minutes. That speed has real value, but it also raises a more consequential question: does the user have the judgment to verify what the tool produces? An effective AI claims skills roadmap answers that question by developing capability in stages, rather than treating artificial intelligence as a software rollout…
Dr. John F. Burton, Jr. died on August 12th at the age of 91. If that name does not immediately register with you, and you work in this industry, I would gently suggest that is a gap worth closing. Give me a few hundred words and I will try to close it. Let me start with the part of the story I own, because it is the only part where…
A claim can become adversarial long before a dispute is formally filed. It often starts with silence after the first report of injury, a confusing medical referral, or an injured employee who cannot explain what happens next. The best injured worker engagement tactics address those moments directly. They make communication a claims-management discipline, not a courtesy, and connect a better worker experience to measurable outcomes in recovery, return to work,…
A claim can turn in a single early conversation. When an injured worker does not understand the process, cannot reach the right person, or receives inconsistent information, uncertainty quickly becomes friction. That friction can delay treatment, impair return-to-work planning, increase attorney involvement, and add cost. An insurance carrier training academy should be designed to prevent those failures at scale - not simply distribute continuing education credits. For carrier leaders, the…
A missed first report of injury is rarely just an administrative error. It can delay medical care, weaken the employer’s credibility, frustrate an injured worker, and create an opening for attorney involvement. The top workers comp compliance risks operate this way: a small breakdown at intake can become a larger financial, regulatory, and human problem as the claim develops. For carriers, TPAs, self-insured employers, and provider organizations, compliance is not…
We measure everything in this industry. We measure lag time, closure ratios, average duration, medical spend per claim, litigation rates, attorney involvement, reserve accuracy, and the number of days between the injury and the first indemnity payment. We have dashboards. We have benchmarking studies. We have entire conference tracks devoted to measuring things, and then a networking reception afterward where we talk about what we measured. Every one of those…
