Wednesday, October 16, 2013

Works' comp: our forgotten loss!


Last week I participated in the first annual Risk Management Seminar for the Legal and Liability Risk Management Institute in Indianapolis.  This is the company for which I do my consulting.  We brought risk managers and insurance pool personnel in for three days of presentations.  I did two sessions.  The first dealt with auditing special operations units and the second addressed how IA/OPS operations can predict the health of a police agency.

A surprisingly interesting presentation was done by Mark Filburn, KY League of Cities, concerning law enforcement workers’ compensation.  It’s the cause of more insurance loss than excessive force claims.  Unfortunately, we don’t spend enough time or attention to workers’ comp.  Consider the loss of personnel time and the overtime necessary to overcome this loss. 

I was surprised to find out that the 5 most common instances of workers’ comp in law enforcement were slip/fall not involving arrests, training injuries, motor vehicle accidents mostly during backups, strains during foot pursuits, and injuries related to arrest incidents.

Mark demonstrated the significant importance of using a safety officer during all training practical programs, not just those on the firing range. In slip/fall cases one thing that could assist in reducing the occurrences is wearing better shoes.  Shoes with a good griping sole and ankle supports.  Wearing seat belts and controlling backups would significantly reduce injuries in vehicle accidents.

I don’t think we pay enough attention to the workers’ comp issue in law enforcement.  We simply allow the officers to write out their injury reports and sometimes a supervisor has to lay another one on top of that.  But rarely is there a reasonable investigation done to validate the injury and the job relationship.  Then when the employee is off they’re often forgotten after a couple of weeks.  Not feeling loved or appreciated, the employee just looks for a way out and some extra money and, hopefully, good medical coverage.

What might be a reasonable answer is to expand the focus on what we now use for fleet safety and shootings.  We do a pretty good job evaluating whether the traffic accident was preventable and then what was necessary to remediate the employee.  We do a good job similarly with officer involved shootings.

What if we expanded that concept of the safety committee to include worker’s comp injuries and other uses of force?  Require this committee to designate a buddy for the injured employee to maintain continuous contact.  That might help the employee feel loved and want to come back to work even earlier.  It seems like an easy win-win!  We should be able to get some valuable information to reduce our overall losses from workers’ comp injuries on top of that. 

Sunday, October 6, 2013

Rambling musings


I’ve been doing this blog for 9 months now.  I’ve seen that it has received nearly 1500 hits and have heard that several of you regularly access it.  What I have found interesting is that I’ve never had any comments.  Maybe the site from Google doesn’t make that convenient or it could be that nobody has been stimulated to that extent.  Regardless, I would appreciate hearing from you either through the site or directly to my Email: loureiter@gmail.com.  Thanks

Here are a couple of rambling muses:

I was at the AARP Convention this weekend in downtown Atlanta at the Georgia World Congress Convention Center.  Sure, I’m old, but I still learn each time I attend one of these.  But, my comment regards an issue with law enforcement at the Center.  I noticed a strange black plastic box in one of the large planters alongside the roadway at the entrance.  Being on somewhat high alert these days I mentioned it to a young Georgia State Trooper directing traffic.  He thanked me and I left, but I noted that neither he nor the Center officer went over to the suspicious package.  The next day the ‘suspicious’ package was in the same place.  This time, however, I looked closer and it turned out to be an exterminator mouse/rat trap.  Sure, I was somewhat amused and a trifle embarrassed.  In retrospect I imagine the Trooper had a decision to make: should I tell this guy he’s a dumb ass or should I simply say it’s a mouse trap.  Either one would have been okay.  Not saying anything could have resulted in another person making a big stink.  Like the Fire Chief I mentioned in one of my last posts…”Be Nice!”

My wife had a similar experience with a different ending.  Marilyn, who is an attorney and was a certified officer and reserve deputy in Florida, noticed a K9 unit outside a restaurant she and one of our daughters went into.  It was one of those hot and humid days in Northern Georgia.  She asked the deputy whether he had any concern about his dog partner out in the SUV.  The deputy pulled out a smaller device and showed her that he could see the vehicle was running, what the inside temp was, and how long he had been away from his partner.  She and I didn’t know they have these neat devices to protect their partner.  A simple explanation resolved the issue.

Another incident she had with a Georgia State Trooper shortly after we moved to George occurred during a traffic stop.  Marilyn tends to have a lead foot.  She mentioned to the trooper that she had been a deputy down in Florida.  He politely asked if she was carrying.  Marilyn told him she wasn’t and didn’t know the carry laws in Georgia.  The Trooper told her it was rather easy, if you didn’t have a gun you could go by any police station and they would give you one.  Of course he was joking.  Surprisingly she didn’t get a ticket.  Blondes and cops, what can I say?