In This Issue

On the Fly: Must know info, upcoming events, and observances.

Workers' Compensation: Avoid penalties in workers' compensation reporting by understanding three critical dates.

Safety: Taking workplace safety to the next level with a safety perception survey.

Property & Casualty: P & C is changing the way claims are reported.

Risk Management: We have a new look!

On the Fly

What You Need to Know Now

• The first and second quarter FY2017 MnSAFE results are now available.
• If you are interested in receiving quarterly workers' compensation news from the MN Department of Labor & Industry, consider signing-up to receive COMPACT their newsletter for workers' compensation professionals.
• Kemal Munn has joined Risk Management as our State Safety Coordinator. Kemal can be reached at kemal.munn@state.mn.us or by phone at 651-201-3011.
• You can find past communications from the Risk Management Division on our News and Information blog page.

Upcoming Events

• MN Safety & Health Conference is May 16-18, 2017. Register by April for discount.

Observances

• January was National Radon Action Month. The MN Department of Health (MDH) recommends that all homes be tested for radon. A good time to test is during the heating season, while your home is closed up. More information regarding radon and testing can be found on the MDH website.

Workers' Compensation

During the reporting of a work-related injury, there are three critical dates that are collected and reported by supervisors and workers’ compensation coordinators to the Workers’ Compensation Program. These dates capture the date of the incident or injury, the date that the employer was notified of the incident or injury, and the date that the employee began losing time from work.

When collecting and reporting these dates through the Injury, Illness & Incident Data Form (IDF) process, it is important to understand what each date is and to know the importance of each date. This article will provide a brief explanation of each. These three dates are reported on the actual First Report of Injury form that is sent to the Minnesota Dept. of Labor & Industry (DLI) for all claims involving more than three calendar days of lost time from work. DLI uses these dates to determine if the injury was reported timely and if a timely first action such as a benefit payment was made. If they find that the injury was not reported timely or that timely first action was not taken, they can penalize the employer with a fine.

Here are three critical dates:

This is the date of the actual claimed injury or the first date that the employee noticed that they were injured.

This is the date that the employer became aware of the injury. Awareness is defined by either receiving direct notice from the employee that they were injured or by a supervisor having direct knowledge of the injury (e.g., they witnessed the injury). Please make sure that all supervisors understand that their awareness or knowledge of an injury starts the clock running for reporting the injury.

This is the date that the employer was notified of lost time from work due to an injury. It is the employee’s responsibility to clearly inform the employer that the lost time from work is due to the injury, unless it should be clear to the employer that there is a causal relationship between the injury and the lost time (e.g., employee is seriously injured and is immediately hospitalized).

Proper reporting of these dates, along with making sure that all supervisors know what to do when an incident or injury occurs, can help prevent potential penalties for late reporting or for late timely first action. If you are unsure of what dates to use while reporting incidents or injuries to the Workers’ Compensation Program, please contact Gary Westman at 651-201-3030 or gary.westman@state.mn.us.

Safety & Loss Control

Agency safety management efforts and MnSAFE, Governor Dayton’s workplace injury reduction initiative, have made an impact, reducing the state employee injury rate by over 25% since 2011.

This equates to nearly 2000 fewer workers' compensation claims since 2011.

And $18.4 million less in workers' compensation benefit payments.

While these results are impressive, there is still more to do. State agencies reported 1,400 compensable employee injuries this past fiscal year and have an ongoing annual MnSAFE injury reduction goal of 5 percent.

While injury rates are a measurement of an organization’s safety performance, they can be misleading and unhelpful when it comes to managing workplace safety. Injury rates are generally considered lagging indicators, a measurement of something that has already happened. Injury rates also present additional challenges:

1. Injury rates become erratic management measures as injury rates decline.
2. You can’t manage what you didn’t intend to happen.
3. Lack of injuries does not necessarily equate to a strong safety program.
4. Measuring rates can lead to non-reporting of injuries to achieve goals.

Finally, studies have shown that low injury rates do not necessarily correlate to strong safety cultures.

A correlated leading safety performance measure is necessary for the long-term sustainability of injury reductions across state government.

“Leading” indicators are measures of things you can impact or manage. Measuring aspects of an organization’s culture can identify weaknesses or gaps that can be actively managed and changed.

“Correlated” refers to a measurement tool that has been tested and shown to relate to injury rates. The stronger the cultural measurement, the lower the injury rates. Therefore, if you can improve your culture score, you can expect to see a reduction in injury rates.

Admin, with the support of the Interagency Safety Committee, is beginning a five year project aimed at enhancing state employee safety perceptions through the use of a safety perception survey.

A safety perception survey, conducted three times over five years, will provide organizations information they need to proactively manage safety and achieve ongoing injury reduction goals.

The survey obtains and analyzes feedback from employees on their perception of workplace safety in seven key areas:

1. Job Satisfaction: Are employees satisfied in their jobs and committed to the organization’s mission.
2. Employee Participation: Are employees engaged in managing workplace safety issues and do they actively support organizational improvement?
3. Work Environment: Is the workplace hazard-free? Are unsafe conditions identified and corrected?
4. Social Norms of Behavior: Do the cultural and social norms of your organization create positive or negative safety behaviors?
5. Safety Supervision: Do supervisors and managers effectively motivate and manage employees?
6. Safety Leadership: Is safety a priority? Does management provide effective leadership with safety initiatives?
7. Safety Training & Education: Have employees been effectively trained? Do managers and employees understand their job hazards and how to do their jobs safely?

The survey includes 45 questions that employees will respond to on a five point scale of “strongly disagrees” to “strongly agrees.” The survey will include three open-ended questions, providing employees the opportunity to identify any specific concerns they are aware of. Employees should be able to complete the survey within 20 minutes.

Comprehensive data analysis and detailed survey reports are expected to provide agencies with:

• Organizational strengths
• Improvement opportunities
• Perception gaps between work groups
• Perception gaps between organizational hierarchy
• Suggested action plan/next steps

The survey is expected to be distributed in the next few months, with reports available to agencies at the end of this fiscal year. Admin is expecting to resurvey the state workforce two more times over the next five years, providing a benchmark measurement and progress measurements.

Admin is covering the cost of the survey distribution and collection, and will be coordinating a statewide communication plan to support the survey. Agencies will be responsible for purchasing their own detailed reports.

Questions about the safety perception survey should be directed to the project coordinator, Todd Christenson at todd.christenson@state.mn.us or by phone at 651-201-3005.

Property & Casualty

In the insurance world, time is money! That is, the greater the time between an incident and when it is reported, generally, the greater the claim and loss will be. Insureds play a significant role in claim management and loss control by reporting incidents as soon as possible. Prompt reporting leads to better claim information, customer service, and claim resolution.

Risk Management has been tracking timely reporting of workers’ compensation claims for several years, and we have seen remarkable claim reporting improvement by insureds. With a similar goal in mind, we began tracking timely reporting of property and casualty claims in fiscal year 2015, and we're asking insureds to report all incidents to Risk Management within 24 hours.

We understand that the way we ask you to report incidents can be a factor that either delays or promotes incident reporting. To promote prompt reporting, we are making several changes to our incident and claim reporting process.

We have published two newly redesigned property and casualty loss notice forms. The Property/Liability Loss Notice and the Vehicle Crash/Damage Notice are to be used to report all incidents and claims. The forms collect the crucial information necessary for us to start a claim investigation. The forms:

• Are fillable on a computer or smart phone
• Can be saved electronically and emailed
• Meet accessibility requirements

Don’t worry! If you have your own incident reporting forms, we are not going to ask you to complete a different or additional form. Please verify that your forms include the key items we have identified on our forms, and if they do, continue using your forms instead.

Beginning immediately, all property and casualty incidents and claims should be reported directly to Risk Management by email to claims.rmd@state.mn.us.

Previously, where and how an incident or claim was reported was dependent on the type of incident, especially auto liability claims, which were reported to our third-party claim adjuster.

If desired, you can still fax your reports to 651-297-7715.

As in the past, once incidents and claims have been set up, you should work directly with the adjuster assigned to the claim, sending any additional incident or claim-related information directly to their attention, not to the claim reporting email address.

We have also established a new 24-hour emergency contact number for large property loss incidents and serious auto or liability incidents that involve serious injuries or fatalities. Risk Management wishes to be notified of these serious incidents so that proactive claims management can begin immediately. The new 24-hour emergency phone number is 651-201-2594.

These changes required us to create an updated Minnesota Insurance Card. The card has also been redesigned to more closely resemble traditional insurance cards. The cards are on order and will be distributed to agencies in the near future. We ask that the cards be placed in all state vehicles.

1. Use the new Property/Liability Loss Notice and the Vehicle Crash/Damage Notice for all liability and property claims.
2. If you wish to continue using your own incident forms, please be sure they collect the information outlined in Risk Management's new forms.

1. By email (preferred) to claims.rmd@state.mn.us.
2. Or by fax at 651-297-7715.
3. Please note: DO NOT report new claims directly to Gallagher Bassett or to tnwclaims@tnwinc.com.

1. Review and change if necessary, any web links you may have to incident and claim reporting forms.
2. Considering creating updated incident reporting packets to be included in the glovebox of all state vehicles.

Thanks in advance for your attention to these incident reporting changes. Together we will increase the timely reporting of all incidents and maintain (or even reduce) the already low insurance rates our insureds pay to do the work of our citizens. Please direct any questions about incident or claim reporting to Scott Johnson at 651-201-2592 or scott.f.johnson@state.mn.us.

Risk Management

We Have a New Look!

The recent debut of our new logo is a visual reminder of how state agencies collaborate and work together to make Minnesota a great place to live, work, and play. The change to a unified State of Minnesota brand will make it easier for residents, visitors, and business partners to identify the many services state agencies provide.

Risk Management also recently transitioned to the GovDelivery platform for our quarterly ALERT newsletter, arming you with timely risk management information in a more readable format.

As the new Minnesota brand and ALERT newsletter are phased in, we welcome your input and feedback.

Our visual brand has changed, as has the format of our newsletter, but our commitment to maximizing Minnesota’s governmental resources by helping our customers actively manage risk remains the same.