Two mostly-ignored things will have way more impact on workers’ comp than any other ten factors.

And as usual, workers’ comp is out to lunch.

Let’s quickly review the work comp industry’s failure to understand reality.  When COVID hit, the workers’ comp industry’s caterwauling and catastrophizing hit epic levels… mostly driven by

• ignorance of actual research on COVID’s cost,
• a failure to focus on COVID cost drivers,
• a complete lack of understanding of how the US healthcare system functions
• misguided focus on claims costs and initial failure to
• anticipate the real impact – a drastic drop in premiums.

That led to far too much angst and far too little reality-based planning by the workers’ comp industry.

Fast forward to today, where the opposite is happening.

The industry is blithely ignoring the impact;

• heat will have on claims, loss ratios, combined ratios, and claim duration, and
• infrastructure investment will have on premiums and claims.

Heat

The massive and seemingly endless heatwave in multiple states is affecting restaurant workers, agricultural workers, folks in logistics and manufacturing.

Sure there’s heat exhaustion and heat stroke and heat prostration (which costs about $38k per claim…)

But that’s the (forgive the analogy) tip of the iceberg…Excessive heat also creates more injuries of all types…injuries to cherry harvesters in Washington State increase 1.5% for every 1 degree C above 25 C (77 degrees F) – mostly from falling off ladders.

Oh, and California data shows: compared to days with temps in the 60s,

• • • on days when the temperature was between 85 – 90 degrees Fahrenheit…the overall risk of ALL types of workplace injuries was 5 to 7 percent higher.
    • when temps topped 100 degrees, the overall risk of injuries was 10 to 15 percent greater.

This means more claims in an industry that is generally unprepared to “manage” heat-related claims.

Jobs

Hundreds of billions of dollars is flowing into infrastructure, investment that has already created ninety thousand jobs in:

• construction,
• transportation improvements,
• highway, bridge and road maintenance and replacement, and
• heavy industry.

And many more jobs are on the way. (check out where this is happening here).

These are very well-paid, high-frequency and high-severity jobs.

This means premiums will increase as will claims and claims costs. And this will continue for years.

What this means for you.

At risk of belaboring the obvious, a more dangerous environment for many more workers  in already high-risk jobs. 

Heat + Jobs = more premium dollars, higher costs for self-insureds, more claims, and higher severity claims.

 

 

If you’re wondering what the heck happened in Russia, join the crowd.

Here’s what I’ve been able to “learn”…

first – the actors

The Wagner Group – a private company that is a combination of a mercenary, terrorist organization, and exploiter of poor countries that supplies Russia with tens of thousands of fighters. Wagner is the most effective fighting force in Ukraine. Wagner is really, really awful.

Yevgeny Prighozin is Wagner’s leader – he’s the former hot-dog stand operator now old bald guy commanding a huge criminal enterprise while always wearing full tactical gear even though he’s never been anywhere near actual fighting.

nice look, eh?

Friday:

• Prighozin called for the firing of Russia’s top two military leaders,
• Wagner Group troops took over critically important supply bases near Ukraine,
• advanced on Moscow with convoys of his troops,  artillery and armored fighting vehicles;
• was met with cheers, flowers, food and drink by Russian citizens;
• shot down a super-sophisticated Russian surveillance plane and several Russian helicopters;
• then Prighozin abruptly turned those convoys around and ostensibly went into exile in Belarus (a neighboring country that is essentially a Russian protectorate) after
• Belarus’ president – a Putin lackey – negotiated some kind of deal between Putin and Prighozin.

Yeah, the entire US and NATO intelligence world is as confused as we are.

As I am far from “expert” in eastern European politics and “strategery”, I’ll just share what credible experts are saying:

1. Putin is much weakened…he relied on a lackey/puppet – Belarus’ president – to end the crisis.
2. Russia is also weaker than many including me thought – and likely getting weaker…
3. Hard to see how merging Wagner’s troops into Russia’s Army will make the Army stronger – there’s too much mutual suspicion and distrust…
4. Our efforts to recruit Russian intel sources seem to be ramping up…

Lastly, there’s this.

“Mr Putin was counting on a long war in which the West would grow tired of arming and funding Ukraine. There is now strong evidence that the war’s prolongation is also accelerating the fragmentation and decay of his regime.”

 

Russian general when he learned about F-16s heading to Ukraine…

Вот чёрт!!

From Phillips O’Brien…

Its impossible to exaggerate the intensity with which Ukrainians from all walks of life, from the top of the state and military to civil society, were focussed on getting F-16s for the Ukrainian Air Force.

Why F-16s are critical…

• Ukraine’s Air Force is woefully behind the times, their main fighter – the Mig-29 – has been around for 40 years and is beyond obsolete. 
• Getting spare parts for the UAF’s Migs is getting harder and harder.
• F-16s are very, very capable – military-speak for they can do lots of things well.
  • shoot down other planes
  • support ground operations
  • launch missiles to hit targets hundreds of miles away
  • shoot down incoming rockets and missiles
• Unlike the Mig-29, F-16s have constantly upgraded
• Unlike many other planes, they are relatively simple to maintain and there is a huge stockpile of spare parts

The net is there is no other single airplane that fits the bill as well as the F-16.

Okay, it’s gonna take a very long time to train Ukrainian pilots on the F-16…

Well, no.

An internal US Air Force document indicates Ukrainian pilots  – with almost no training – could execute complicated maneuvers albeit it in an F-16 simulator. Multiple sources indicate Ukrainian pilots can be flying the F-16s in combat a few months.

And…

It’s unlikely the F-16s will have much of an impact on the already-started/upcoming Ukrainian offensive, but they will play a major role in Ukraine’s likely long war.

What does this mean for you?

More good news for Ukraine, and bad days for Russian butchers.

There’s much rending of clothes and gnashing of teeth in the mass media about how Jack Teixeira’s criminal stupidity will:

• help Russian generals defeat Ukraine’s pending attacks by identifying attacking units and eliminating surprise
• really tick off our allies
• reveal key shortages of materiel (military-speak for ammunition, spare parts, supplies and weapons systems)

Uh, no. Let’s take these in order. (much more detail at Phillips O’Brien’s excellent substack postings.)

The upcoming offensive

Is the worst-kept secret since Trump’s sexual antics with porn stars.

Ukrainian officials, military leaders, Allied intelligence, Russian military bloggers have all talked about this. Heck, they even know the military units that will do the attacking. What we don’t know is when and where…and Teixeira’s documents don’t give a date or location..

Angry allies

What? An ally is spying on us? How…common.

Reality is everyone spies on everyone else all the time. There will be outrage and histrionics from politicians from Israel to Norway, all furious at such conduct.

All will be for public consumption, this will die down pretty quickly, and really…does anyone think allies will abandon the US or Ukraine over this?

Materiel shortages and impact thereof

This is perhaps the most ridiculous “disclosure.” There have been hundreds of public reports, news articles, blog posts and stories about this over the last few months.

Lastly, among the “revelations” in Teixeira’s documents is that our intelligence community has doubts about whether Ukraine’s upcoming offensive will achieve much.

Hardly.  With some notable exceptions (e.g.the timing of Russia’s initial attack) US intel has a rather poor record of predicting what’s going to happen in Ukraine. And that is being kind.

What does this mean for you?

Top Secret…isn’t.

More than 1.3 million individuals have Top Secret clearances.

You can bet your house the Russians knew everything in Teixeira’s documents long before they hit Discord.

 

B2B sales is NOT about “value”, RoI, relationships, or anything else you think it is.

It is about meeting the emotional/psychological needs of the key buyers.

You may have sensed this, or interpreted it as “relationships” that make deals happen  – but that is a misread. The reason relationships work is they reflect the sales person’s deep investment in getting to know the buyer(s), understanding what drives them (outside of obvious business goals), and mitigating their fears.

A terrific piece in Harvard Business Review speaks directly to this…(quotes from the article)

• findings indicate that B2B customers prefer interactions that fuel their psychological needs — even if they require more time or cost more money.
• Among vendors who provide “poor” service, only 33% of respondents reported that the vendor knows them personally. In contrast, among vendors who provide “good” service, respondents indicated the vendor knows them personally more than twice as often (70%).
• Even when you have an effective solution in mind, provide your clients with options so they’re reminded that they’re in control.
• 
  (this is directly supported by our most recent survey of prescription drug management in workers’ comp…respondents overwhelmingly want PBMs to provide them insight so they can fix problems collaboratively)
• Our study also included some interesting findings around empathy. Expressing empathy, a common way of increasing connection with our friends and family, can backfire if customers perceive it to be disingenuous. Too often, service providers script empathy into customer interaction, assuming it’s what customers want to hear. That’s a mistake. Our research indicates that customers far prefer a service provider who responds knowledgeably over one who “feels their pain.”

What does this mean for you?

be genuine.

ask questions, don’t present.

don’t schmooze.