How do others deal with the workers comp situation?

We're a small roofing company and have been with a PEO mainly for the w/c coverage. The insurance company is being shut down and now we're looking at the assigned risk pool which is not an option for us financially. Any suggestions?

Lefty, I'm in a similar situation. The state changed my modification rating, so instantly I get that bill for $6k due in 30 days.

And then yesterday a retired union carpenter from Chicago says he doesn't know how I have to the nerve to give a bid for $305/sq for a 2layer t/o & reroof. I said "wow retired from a life of carpentry eh? The crew you paid 20% less than me probably can't spell retirement, and I'll be lucky if I can!"

Oh, I wasn't the only "a-hole" to bid it that high, there was another a bit higher than me.

twill59 Said:

prsroof Said: NEW JERSEY RATE IS 41% WITH THE STATE ASSIGN RISK POOL ANOTHER 17% WHICH I WAS IN FOR THE LAST FIVE YEARS BEING A NEW COMPANY. THIS YEAR NEW POLICY WITH A COMPANY BECAUSE NO CLAIMS 31% NO ASSIGN RISK. BUT I DID GET AUDITED FROM LAST YEAR AND I OWE ANOTHER $87,000.00.

If you are surprised, then You shoulda tracked your payroll better

Twill59, That is not necessarily true. We send in our payments according to what we payout. 3 years ago after the audit was done and everything was straight, books were closed out for the year, they came back 3 months later and decided that they would tack on an outrageous amount that just about put me out of business. They also demanded the money in 30 days. What happened to me had nothing to do with tracking or late payments.

NEW JERSEY RATE IS 41% WITH THE STATE ASSIGN RISK POOL ANOTHER 17% WHICH I WAS IN FOR THE LAST FIVE YEARS BEING A NEW COMPANY. THIS YEAR NEW POLICY WITH A COMPANY BECAUSE NO CLAIMS 31% NO ASSIGN RISK. BUT I DID GET AUDITED FROM LAST YEAR AND I OWE ANOTHER $87,000.00.

California's was hovering around 100% a few years ago. Anyone chime in?

Colorado's is very low; 20-25% I believe, so with a mod rate of say 75% your at 15-19%.

I can't give accurate #'s, (a bit embarrassed to say), as I haven't had my finger on the pulse of things like that for a decade or so, (back when we where 80-100 employees).

The problem is for the emerging outfit, they're facing 100%, until such time they establish a favorable mod rate. CA. would be exponentially difficult.

I do have an ex-employee in CA. who's mod is an incredible .59....He should be in an advantageous position.

Another thing the OH-BWC has done over the past decade+ is offer a program that enables companies to purchase equipment at about 20 cents on the dollar.

You need to show how a particular piece of equipment would have saved you from an injury on record, or demonstrate how it would greatly reduce the threat of an injury compared to the manual means of accomplishing the task that the equipment replaces.

I think we've picked up $110,000 in equipment for an out of pocket $22,000

The program isn't available every year, but if it does occur in consecutive years, you cannot participate any more than every-other year.

No grant values have been announced yet, but supposedly the BWC is going to offer it again for the '15-'16 payroll cycle.

As of today, we are at day 366/work days (average 27 men/day) without a lost time incident. Prior to that we had reached 704 work days.

I've always kind of despised facts and figures that just get thrown around without any practical application value. So back in 2012, to make that number a little more real, I had taken the total man hours worked at the end of the 704 streak and calculated that it was the equivalent of a single man working 80 some years (I think it was 88 years) at 2,000 hours per year without getting hurt in a manner that required anything other than first-aid. Considering the average roofer spends less than 30 years in-field during their career, I don't think a record that represents almost three entire career roofers going without a single injury that caused them to miss a single day of work is too shabby.... eh?

I will say this though, a record like that, and rates like ours take money to achieve. We manage our WC claims hard. We put people on salary continuation and get them into light duty asap so that they don't collect temp disability. We were the 2nd roofing company in Ohio to go drug free, and the first to do it without going bankrupt in the process. We went drug free almost 20 years ago, long before it was the popular thing to do. A lot of companies comply with "drug free" on paper but look the other way at every opportunity. We take it serious.

Ohio had a program called "The Governor's Award for Excellence in..."

The Excellence in Workplace Safety nominations come from egonomists in the BWC. You can't nominate yourself. non-winners could not be nominated more than once every two years. It was an "all-industry" award, meaning we were competing against every company in the state. To our knowledge, our little ol' roofing company here in the backwoods of SE Ohio, is the ONLY roofing contractor ever nominated for the award, and we've been nominated twice.

That don't mean much to people that just shopping price, but to the right customer, that's a valuable sales tool.

Tom,

Last I checked, it was 28 percent for new enrollments, and went up or down from there. It's been a while since I've checked.

When Sen. George Voinovich was Gov. of Ohio, he did a great job of kicking the BWC's arse in gear. They formed the group-rating system, and we worked our way into the next to lowest group rating possible. Our record was so good that we actually got into a group that was part of some professional organization (ie: office people). I think it was the Professional Insurance Agents Association, or something like that. That's when we were at 7 percent.

Eventually the unions sued, and it's moved up a bit, but we've still got about as good a system in Ohio as I've heard about. Gov. Kasich just announced a 1 billion dollar rebate going back to employers because of good performance in the BWC portfolio and reduced claims. They've had a couple of such rebates over the last 15+ years. I think the one year, the first one ever offered, we got $80,000 some dollars back in rebate. As our record has improved, the rebates have shrank, because our premiums-paid have been smaller as well.

WC should simply be a cost of doing business.

Problem is, most states east of the continental divide have allowed the "sub-game" to become the norm. So WC is considered a luxury or an obstacle to circumvent rather than the right thing to do.

As Lefty said......(sort of); Need to put your big-boy pants on & deal.....

MikeH....14%! WOW! That's next to nothing.....What's Ohio's WC rate for roofers?

Good luck w/ your work comp. I just got slapped with an "endorsement" for my new state assigned risk rating. $6,000 due at the end of the month and my new policy will be that much higher.

I'm still investigating if this is disputable. This is caused by one guy spraining his ankle costings $3800 and another guy twisting his wrist running an cordless impact gun on a metal roof install, costing them $27k. The 2nd one was a pre-existing condition, I can't believe they accepted the claim.

Now it's costing me. I thought endorsements were good things??

Like Left said- you will need to raise your prices if you go thru the state.

That is not what I said. I said where we have our workmans comp. The other statement had nothing to do with where I have my insurance.

Bill needs to raise his prices no matter where he has his insurance. If you find yourself in this bind, you need to look at what got you there and if you blame the insurance industry then there is nothing you can do about your situtation. That is not the only thing that needs to be done, but it is the first thing to do to deal with the raise in rates.

Thank you everyone for your suggestions regarding the w/c situation.

We went thru that WC nightmare , this was prior to the PEO, being a licensed certified state Florida has some rules , like you can use a subcontractor unless they are licensed and certified for the trade that hey are doing our rate for WC and all other insurances was costing us for the tradesmen 1.05 per hundred of payroll eventually it was not worth the expense later on the PEO came into play but they were forced out by the Florida insurance commissioner after several attempts we decided to get out of this race finally the wc rate was decreased to 56%, many of our competitors only claimed partial payrolls and the cash business flourished everything was fine until the State inspectors started to check out jobs, the insurance news was full of many companies which had been arrested for committing insurance fraud, a lot of folks went to jail and more companies closed down, competency licenses were suspended or revoked most of my competition that I knew from the 70's have gone with the wind however some are still around using different PEO's we shut down operations in 2005 I was hard to find a PEO that would insure wc and liability for hot work I chose a different field as a result of my health I don't know how the roofing industry in Florida is today I'm surprised they still have roofing contractors here Lots of luck in your quest B)

^---I know you get a lot of safety awards and all, but that just blew my mind.

We are in the state fund in Ohio, but manage our WC so aggressively that our overall rate has often been below 10% and it's been years since it's been over 14.

Ours is through the state and it's rough. I'm hoping to get out of the pool soon.

Also, your profile says your into siding? That's one way to get around roofing insurance :unsure:

We used Trigon- they were great but only in Arizona and New Mexico, but they did cover my guys when they worked in Texas. You can contact other PEO's even out of state ones. Some cover multi-state coverage.

Like Left said- you will need to raise your prices if you go thru the state.