Today’s Shock Audit Email

 It’s frustrating when a small business reaches out to us with one of these Workers Compensation Shock Aufits, because they’re so common and so preventable if only a better job was done by the insurance system at various stages of the life cycle of a Workers Compensation policy.

This one involves a small start up package delivery company. A little over a year ago this company bought a Workers Compensation insurance policy for $1500.00.

Now, they have an audit bill for over $400,000 and it’s in collections.

And they don’t know what to do.

Fortunately, they found us. This is what we specialize in. And we believe we can substantially reduce this bill. But can the bill be reduced substantially enough for this business to avoid financial obliteration?

That’s the question we’re now exploring with this client.

One additional complicating factor: the business owner isn’t very fluent in English. But we’re working around that, thanks to a family member of the client.

But this case illustrates the dysfunctional way the Workers Compensation insurance system sometimes functions as a financial weapon of mass destruction for small businesses, particularly new businesses.

I mean, what other major industry could sell a product for $1500 and, a year later, send a retroactive bill for $400,000? No other legal business, I suspect. 

The insurance agent in this case? An online agency owned by an insurance company. All done in a perfectly legal manner, following the somewhat loose regulations that govern these things.

Now some collection attorney is sending out perfectly legal collection letters to these folks, demanding $400,000 with a straight face. And he’ll file a perfectly legal lawsuit if that bill isn’t paid and get a perfectly legal judgment and the company will cease to exist.

Except we can knock that bill down by, we believe, hundreds of thousands of dollars.

And maybe we can save this little business.

How I Help Insurance Agents When Workers Comp Audits Go Sideways

 I've spent more than half my life helping business policyholders reduce Workers Comp audits by finding and correcting technical errors by insurance companies. Just this week, a small Idaho contractor got a $28,000 refund from his last Workers Comp audit, because I got the classifiction code used retroactively corrected.

$28,000 may not seem like a huge sum to many companies, for this small biz it was a big deal.

Anyway. my point is that it's not just the policyholder I help. Often, it's the insurance agent who sold that Workers Comp policy, because policyholders often unfairly hold the agent responsible when they get what we call a "Shock Audit" for Workers Comp.

That's why we often get brought in by those insurance agents, to help their clients with contentious audits.

I'm a specialized consultant on Workers Comp audits, classifications, experience mods, and related technical issues that impact Workers Comp premiums. But I don't sell insurance.

That means an insurance agent doesn't have to worry I'll try to poach his account, if he brings me in to help. I'm not an insurance producer and I'm not affiliated with any insurance agency or insurance company.

And as part of the process, I can explain why insurance agents aren't to blame when an insurance company ends up developing a large amount of Additional Premium on an audit. I've been an agent, I know just how little authority and influence insurance companies give agents over premium audits.

But policyholders often don't understand that. They only know that the insurance company that the agent hooked them up with is clobbering them with a serious, unexpected bill that feels unfair and unwarranted. And they believe that the insurance agent is in on some kind of nefarious scheme to rip them off by making the back end of the insurance cost a lot more than initially expected.

Policyholders often wrongly think that the insurance agent makes a windfall with these Shock Audits (which isn't true but is a common and poisonous misconception that can really damage the relationship between the insurance producer and the client.)

When an insurance agent introduces me to this angry and frustrated client, a couple of positive things happen.

One, it can enhance the professional standing of the agent with the client. Now, instead of being part of the problem, the agent is part of the solution.

Secondly, the agent doesn't have to get in an adversarial position with an insurer that may be an important market for future sales. Insurance companies already are familiar with my work and they understand that disputing Workers Comp audits is what I do for a living. It shields the agent from negative impacts of an audit dispute because, as far as the insurance company knows, the agent had nothing to do with bringing me into the picture.

After all, we get calls and emails almost every day from frustrated policyholders about one of these Shock Audits for Workers Compensation insurance. So most of our audit disputes originate directly with the policyholder contacting us.

And as part of my work, I can explain the inner workings of premium audits and why insurance agents really don't have much, if any, influence over how a premium auditor determines the audited premium. But the fact that the agent brought me in to help the client can go a long way to smoothing down ruffled feathers.

And if the agent is seen as assisting in some way with my efforts, by helping gather documents and data, the beneficial impact of my involvement can become even more significant for the long term relationship between the agent and the insured.

So to all the insurance producer folks out there, I would suggest that they view me as a resource that can help salvage a difficult bump in the road with a client. It can be a secret weapon that a competitor lacks, turning a negative situation with a customer into a positive one.

Another Georgia Nightmare Shock Audit For a Small Biz

 Just got retained for yet another Georgia small contractor facing financial ruin from a large insurance company over a Workers Comp Shock Audit. In this one, the insurer is filing suit seeking $250,000 for what was originally a small policy that had originally produced a Return Premium when the audit was done.

Something feels deeply, deeply wrong with the Georgia Assigned Risk Plan. It has been apparently weaponized by a very large insurance company into some kind of out-of-control Frankenstein's monster for small contractors. Buy a policy this year, face utter ruin a year and a half later.

This is not the way Workers Compensation insurance was intended to function. 

I have high hopes I can help knock this audit down to size--because I invariably find these audits don't hold up to scrutiny. Which is scandalous all by itself.

So for me, the game is afoot. For these small business owners, they are losing sleep and fearing the worst. Because the system is broken.

For me, it means job security, I guess. For them, fear and anxiety and expense. But I will do my best for them. And for a lot of similar past cases, my best was good enough. So let's see what I can do here.

When Are Rules Not Really Rules, Georgia Edition

 I do a lot of work in Georgia, for some reason. And I’ve been pretty impressed with the local folks there at the Department of Insurance and NCCI. But some recent cases there have revealed an interesting answer to the question posed in the heading of this post.

When are rules not really rules? When there is no penalty for ignoring them.

So let me explain what I’ve observed in some recent Georgia cases that illustrate this.

I’ve written a lot about the problems of Shock Audits in Workers Compensation insurance. That’s where some employer, typically a small contractor, gets sold a cheap policy. With premium of maybe $1500 or so. And then after the policy ends, gets a bill for $150,000.00. For his $1500 policy.

And when he can’t pay that bill, the small contractor gets sued by that insurer because the insurer thinks the small contractor ripped them off.

Now, the insidious part is that, because the small contractor doesn’t know what his Workers Compensation really costs, he doesn’t price his services properly—he can’t build in a realistic cost for Workers Comp because he hasn’t been given a realistic estimate of that cost.

So the small contractor digs a nice big hole for himself, project by project. And every job he thinks is making a bit of profit for him is actually losing him money.

Now in Georgia, the Assigned Risk Plan (where most small contractors end up) has rules in place that should prevent this hole digging.

Except there is no penalty when the insurer just ignores those rules. And that’s when rules aren’t really rules.

In the Georgia Assigned Risk Plan, insurers are required to verify classifications and payrolls in the early months of a policy. And for most construction contractors, they’re also required to perform a separate Preliminary Physical Audit in the middle of the policy. And when done, these required quality control steps would alert our small contractor to the actual cost of the insurance, before that hole gets overwhelmingly deep.

But what happens if an insurer just ignores those requirements?

Nothing.

I’ve observed this in multiple recent cases.

And so the Shock Audits keep devastating small contractors.

Fortunately, I can often find and correct enough technical errors in these Shock Audits to at least knock the audit bills down to something that’s merely painful and not apocalyptic.

But in my view, it really shouldn’t be this way. And making these rules have some genuine penalties involved in cases of insurers laughing them off would be a godsend for these small entrepreneurs.

But what do I know?

Wait, You Do What, Exactly?

 Mainly, I catch insurance companies overcharging employers on Workers Comp insurance. And then I get that money back for those employers.

That’s my elevator speech, and it’s a fair summation of my work over the past forty two years. I don’t sell insurance and I’m not an attorney (although my son and business partner for the past twenty some years is an attorney).

I’ve worked with clients all over the U.S. from California to New Jersey, Alaska to Florida. And pretty much everywhere in between. And I’ve worked with an incredible variety of employers: machine shops, small contractors, staffing agencies, an NFL team, health care providers, Fortune 500 type companies, a company that made mirrors for satellites, a battery recycler, a government agency, a labor union, some insurance companies and agencies, a tourist railroad in Hawaii, and others that escape my mind at the moment. I get refunds for clients from past policies and I help fight premium audits for other clients when excessive and incorrect premium audits threaten to put them out of business.

I do this work as a consultant. And I also serve as an expert witness (in both civil and criminal cases, all across the U.S. in state and federal courts) in cases involving Workers Compensation and GL audits and premiums.

But it’s still a challenge to explain to folks exactly what I do for a living.

Maybe just look at CutComp.com for the long version.

Widespread Workers Comp Overcharges in Florida

 Based on some recent cases of ours, it appears that a great many Florida construction companies, large and small, may have been overcharged on their Workers Compensation insurance audits in recent years. We specialize in recovering such overcharges for policyholders, and so we're actively encouraging any and all Florida construction companies ,whose recent Workers Comp insurance audit bills have been higher than they anticipated, to let us check over those audit bills to see if we can recover any of those excessive premiums.

Based on what we've seen, we believe the problem is widespread.

If you think your company may be one of those overcharged, contact us directly at 800-288-9256, or email me at AIM@cutcomp.com.

We'll take a look at no charge to see if your company is one those that have been overcharged. If you have been, we can help get that money back.

Another Shock Audit Email From Georgia

 Another Georgia small biz has reached out to us, after receiving a Shock Audit for their Workers Comp insurance. A bill for $159,000 threatens to swamp this small Georgia contractor. Except…the insurance company has used the wrong classification and rate for these folks.

And Georgia has a notably effective administrative system for disputing such things, without need of going to court. So I’m confident we can help reduce this Shock Audit by a sizable amount. 

This insurance company probably won’t like me much after this. That’s okay. They take it personally every time I beat them and their enmity just tells me I’m doing right by my clients.