Index Offers Big Picture on WC-Medical Prices

Economists at the National Council on Compensation Insurance (NCCI) have developed a new Workers Compensation Weighted Medical Price Index, to provide a real-time look at price change trends and is weighted to match workers’ compensation more closely than other indexes.
The Medical Inflation Insights (MII) report provides a quarterly update on how an array of inflation metrics are trending while providing insights on how these trends could affect workers compensation.
They said that while the Personal Health Care (PHC) price index, published by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), is the widely recognized medical price index that most closely matches workers compensation, it lacks the key advantage of real-time tracking of other public gauges.
The WCWMI is a composition of medical cost components from the Producer Price Index and the Consumer Price Index, reweighted using NCCI’s Medical Call data to better match the mix of spend in workers compensation.
READ MORE

The head of Nationwide’s workers’ compensation line of business recently told Independent Agent magazine that “Workers comp is the most profitable major line of business for the industry.”
According to the report, the Columbus, Ohio-based company’s Mort Large said that in the last three years, economic growth, coupled with inflation has contributed to an underlying baseline of premium growth for workers comp, “which for the most part has been offsetting loss cost decreases.”
However, “there are some headwinds driven primarily by medical inflation,” according to Jeff Cole, head of national accounts, Sentry Insurance.
READ MORE

Arrowhead General Insurance is offering commercial auto insurance to its workers comp clients in construction-related industries.
“A few competitors are offering commercial auto insurance as a companion product, and some are offering multi-line coverage, but many others are not offering these options,” said Becky Pinto, president of Arrowhead Workers’ Compensation.
“We believe by providing workers’ compensation as our leading product where risk management services are provided, will contribute to the development of profitable growth and a sustainable offering. And the timing is good based on the demand for a commercial auto product.”
The multi-state agency said construction and contractor-related accounts in California may be eligible for the coverage.
READ MORE