This month I will deviate from my normal Workers’ Compensation issues and use my column to welcome a new MTMIC Board Member, Karen Schluckebier. Karen became a Board Member in March and attended her first MTMIC Board meeting April 17th. The Board Members and the management team are delighted that Karen joined our Board. She brings some skill sets that are valuable to the Board and helpful to the management team. The following is a short bio on Karen:

Karen has worked for the Rogers Group in Clare, Michigan since 1999. The Rogers Group is a multi-company group including StageRight, Filcon, Rogers Athletic, World Sporting Good, and Tranquil Systems International. She currently holds the senior manager position as Director of Human Resources with human resource responsibilities for all Roger Group companies. Karen has played a key role with acquisitions and other risks to the company. Karen has worked in the area of human resources including training & development since 1985. (more…)

Adverse Pricing Changes

A couple times a month our policyholders call me and ask me about adverse pricing. Their question is, “How did it happen to me, and what are the causes”? While this is not a frequent question, I have to say it is one where the customer is the most concerned and anxious for answers.

My answer to this question first starts with a review of company payroll/growth. Sometimes it is a simple review – the payroll for your company has gone up by 50%. There is no rate increase; your premium increased because your company and its payroll is growing. If there is no increase in payroll or the increase is minor, then we move to the two primary causes of adverse pricing/rate changes. Within these two causes, there can be an impact at your next policy renewal as well as an impact a year or two later.

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Our 2013 financial results have been finalized with our actuary. The good news is that through loss control efforts and claims handling by our policyholders, MTMIC made a small underwriting profit for the year. A small underwriting profit is in line with a primary company goal of keeping our customer’s rates as low as possible. Additionally with some conservative investment of company funds, we added to that bottom line. Sometimes I am asked where do our mutual profits go? There are only two places: 1) a company surplus account and 2) policyholder dividends. Given the size of the profit, we have put the money in the company surplus account. This account provides a buffer if we have a year where the results do not generate a profit – that is, losses exceed our collected premium for the year.

In the workers’ compensation insurance business good results just don’t happen. It takes a wide range of people involved. It takes mutual policyholders who worry about loss control and their individual company claims experience. It takes professional insurance staff providing loss control support services to our policyholders. By the way, at MTMIC, we have one full time field loss control consultant for every 240 policyholders. This is a commitment and focus that no other Michigan insurer can match. Beside the focus of the staff, we provide safety training videos, training documents, ergonomic tools and written safety programs in the tool box to help our policyholders.

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By Glenda Moyle, Premium Accounting Manager

Wow, can you believe another year has gone by. And what that means is its final audit time again for our January renewals. When we issued your policy, you gave us estimated payrolls by class codes on which we were to base your premium. The final audit will give us actual payrolls, by class codes, to see if you owe us more premium or we owe you a refund of premium. About half of our policyholde

rs will be going through their final audit in the next couple of weeks. If you haven’t already been contacted by our audit company, The Aprise Group, you will be shortly.

Your renewal packet consisted of all of your renewal documents as well as a sheet titled, “Guidelines for Your Premium Audit.” Please use that document as well as the information in the list of inclusions and exclusions on the back side of the newsletter when preparing for your upcoming audit.

For over 30 years I have been helping you with this process and I continue to be ready to answer your questions.

Patty Allen Sales & Marketing Assistant

As with our renewal process, many departments work together to get the Labor Law Posters prepared for delivery to our 725 policyholders. We provide these posters as a courtesy to all of our insured’s.
The Marketing department begins working on the process approximately six months in advance of the mid-January mailing. Our Loss Control team researches the labor laws to make sure that we have the most current information at the Federal and Michigan level. We then work with our printer to produce a poster in the correct size and font. Once the posters are printed and mailing tubes ordered; the posters are rolled and stuffed into the tubes with the mailing labels affixed to the outside. Additional care is taken so that you don’t receive an empty tube with no posters. We then complete the mailing by affixing the proper postage based on zip code and arrange for a special pick-up by the USPS.

By the time you are reading this article, your company should have received the updated 2014 State and Federal Labor Law posters.

We thank you for your continued business and if you need additional posters, please contact me at patricia.allen@ mtmic.com/blog.

With the holidays and the January 1 renewal rush going on, I passed over a couple important staff changes at MTMIC. The good news is that these are changes with people you know and have worked with for years.

First Megan Brown, our Director of Sales & Marketing for the last 6 ½ years was promoted to Vice President of Sales & Marketing. Megan is the field presence and face of MTMIC. Our growth is the net result of Megan’s efficient and effective work. Prior to joining MTMIC Megan spent 15 years as a marketing manager and director in the field of occupational health. Megan obtained her Bachelor’s degree from Michigan State University. She has been active in a variety of associations. Her family including her husband, daughter and son are avid runners competing regularly in half and full marathons.

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Well, at this writing in the middle of December, I’m about fifteen feet from where I used to sit, sort of in a closet/ utility room.

My acquaintances know I have on occasion taken the liberty to comment on life in general; I have enjoyed that aspect of the position over the years and regret that I’ll lose this public forum which permitted my indulgences. Having acknowledged my weaknesses, I’ll try to avoid making bad puns or any other random acts of impropriety as I leave the job I have enjoyed for fifteen years. It may be difficult because after fifteen years you do get an extensive notepad of things better left unsaid.

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Hope you had a wonderful holiday season. For the staff of MTMIC, it went by quickly. With over half of our policyholders renewing on January 1 it has been a busy office time.

File reviews, gathering data, reviewing losses, loss control reports and getting shop operation updates from our policyholders takes time. While it is still too early to give you the “numbers” for January 1, our early indication is that we have renewed about 98% of our policyholders. We will share the final numbers with you next month. A couple industry trends are apparent. Most of your shops are busier now than last year. Not everyone, the results are “lumpy”, yet in aggregate, payrolls look to be up about 8%. Another interesting finding is that many of our policyholders have added a new product line and/or new significant customer. I was surprised how much your shops have changed and adjusted to new products and/or customers. Our policyholders ARE creative and pushers. Not much of this helps you in workers compensation, but the market intelligence is interesting. Maybe one piece of MTMIC trivia. How much payroll do our policyholders anticipate in 2014? A big number – over $1,100,000,000.

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