Having an upbeat positive work environment can save you money on your insurance. You may be asking yourself “what does insurance have to do with the moral of my company?” The answer is A LOT.
Often times when I walk into the office of a new prospect I can get a pretty good idea of what their claims history is going to be. Are the people upbeat and smiling or do they look like it’s the last place on earth they want to be? Office culture has a lot to do with the number of claims and how severe those claims are. This is just a generalization and there are certainly instances where unavoidable claims occur at businesses with an extremely positive culture. However, many times the culture in the office is reflected on the loss runs which directly effects insurance premium. Below are a couple of examples.
Example 1: An employee sprains his ankle at work.
In a negative environment, the employee most likely is already unhappy at work. To make matters worse the boss then yells at the employee for doing something “stupid” to injure his ankle. The employee goes and sees his longtime Doctor, Dr. Summeroff. The employee greatly exaggerates the pain they are in and asks Dr. Summeroff to write him a note saying he cannot work for 3 weeks. Now the employer must file a workers’ compensation claim and pay the employee’s medical expenses as well as a portion of his salary. This will most certainly result in an increase in premium for the employer for the next three years. The employer will also have to hire someone to replace the injured employee for three weeks while they are out.
In a positive environment, the employee enjoys being at work and gets along with many of his or her co-workers who he or she considers friends. When he or she gets injured the employer does not yell at the employee. The employer talks to the employee to make sure he or she is ok and lets them know that they will do everything they can take care of them and get them healthy. The employee seeks medical attention. He or she informs the doctor that the pain is very dull. The doctor instructs the employee that they should stay off the ankle for a week. The employee takes the day off but returns the next day. The employer has designed light duty tasks for the employee that can be performed while sitting so they can keep weight off the ankle. In this scenario, the worker’s compensation is significantly reduced as well as other soft costs associated with an employee being out of work.
The above example involved workers compensation insurance, however, similar scenarios exist for other lines such as General Liability, Auto or Property. Unhappy workers tend to be more careless and do not think of how their actions affect the company and their co-workers. Happy and content employees usually work safer because they want the company to be successful.
