Reducing workers’ comp cost is an outcome, not a goal.
The goal is control. Consistent injury response across every person, department and location is what produces the number, and it is the only part of this you actually own.
Cost is what gets the budget approved. Control is what you are really after: never being surprised, answering the cost question in a leadership meeting with data instead of excuses, and a program that does not fall over if two experienced people leave.
The gap between a managed injury and an unmanaged one
Measured from real client books. A number on its own informs; a number against its benchmark is the reason to act.
What a lost time claim costs against a medical only claim. The whole return to work argument is in that spread.
What a litigated claim costs against one that never goes there.
How often a claim ends up litigated, by how fast it was reported. The pattern holds at every step in between.
The share carried by injuries reported more than 30 days late. Late reporting is not an administrative problem.
These are measured figures from books we have analysed, not a promise about yours. What your own book will carry is the point of the Diagnostic Review, and we would rather state an honest range than a convenient number.
Three problems, and none of them is the claim
No real control
How an injury gets handled varies by person, department and location, which produces inconsistent and expensive outcomes. Nobody designed it that way. It is what happens when the standard was never written down.
No visibility in time to act
Almost everything measured in workers’ comp is a lag measure. It arrives accurate, complete, and far too late to change the outcome it is describing.
No accountability, so it drifts
Anything that does get fixed reverts within a quarter, because the attention moves on and nothing holds the standard in place.
You have advice, not control.
Nobody in the chain is paid for the outcome you want. That is not a criticism of any particular broker, carrier, administrator or clinic, most of whom do their own job well. It is the shape of the model. We are paid a flat install fee and a flat monthly, never tied to your claim volume, your premium, or a share of your savings, and whether we are here next year depends entirely on the program improving.
What moves, and roughly when
Being straight about the timing is part of the offer. Some of this moves in weeks. Some of it cannot move for quarters, and anyone who tells you otherwise is selling.
Lead measures, within weeks
- Percent of injuries reported within 24 hours
- Average lag time from incident to report
- Manager injury response completion
- Return to work offer made
- Employee 72 hour check in completion
- Location by location variation on every one of the above
Lag measures, over quarters
- Claim duration
- Indemnity rate, days away and days restricted
- Litigation rate
- Open claim inventory and aging
- Total incurred and cost per employee
Litigation and large loss are lagging. They move after lag time and return to work move, not at the same time. That is the honest answer to why litigation has not improved yet in month three, and it is exactly why the lead measures get reported as evidence of direction before the cost lands.
See how IMOS actually works
Diagnose, Install, Sustain. Three stages, and the third one is the reason the first two hold.
