In previous articles, I have discussed the importance of managing claims to reduce their overall cost, thus protecting your experience rating. Those discussions have focused on protecting your experience rating with the view to reducing your workers’ compensation costs. 

But there are other reasons for protecting your experience rating, besides your workers’ compensation costs. A poor rating may not only result in a premium surcharge from your compensation board, it may also cost your business in terms of lost revenue.

In previous articles, I have postulated that helping a worker return to work as quickly and safely as possible is one of the best ways for an employer to contain the cost of a workers’ compensation claim.

Workers and employers both have rights and duties with respect to return-to-work activities. Employers have a duty to offer suitable work when it is available, and workers have responsibilities to help identify suitable work, if requested, and to attempt suitable work if it is offered.

Employers — urged by the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board (WSIB) in Ontario —now have increased focus on claims management for work-related injuries, as well as early and safe return to work (ESRTW). This has resulted in health and safety and human resource professionals being given additional duties, often very complicated. If mismanaged, these added responsibilities can cost companies money, time, respect and integrity.

One of the biggest pitfalls of workers’ compensation claims is a failure on the part of the employer in the management of those claims.

Most experience rating programs established by workers compensation boards are based on claim cost and claim duration. A failure to manage claims will result in increased costs through increased duration, thus negatively impacting those claims. In addition, a byproduct of not managing a claim is that return to work becomes more difficult as time passes.

In tough economic times, one of the hardest things to face as an employer is additional compensation costs. It is difficult enough to manage a business with a positive safety culture and a view of preventing accidents without having to pay additional premiums to the compensation board in the form of surcharges due to poor experience rating.

What do you do when an injured worker claims that they are incapable of any work, yet others report having seen them gardening or doing renovation work at home? What options are available to employers in these situations? Are there any rules to be followed?