By Cindy Boyce, Senior Claims Adjuster

I have worked for MTMIC for 26 years in growing capacities, and currently am the Senior Claims Adjuster. In this role I handle the majority of the litigation in the office, especially the complex ligation issues. I have had the pleasure of working with a great deal of you throughout the years, however since we have seen growth in the number of our insured’s some of you may not know me. If you don’t know me, that’s a good thing as most likely your company has not involved in a complex claim or related issue. I am licensed in the State of Michigan as an Insurance Claims Adjuster and have a degree in business and as a medical assistant, along with extensive training and experience in all aspects of workers’ compensation claims including, causal relationships of injuries, medical issues, medical treatments, and remedies related to typical and complex cases. In addition to being knowledgeable, you will also find me easy to work with and comfortable that you will always be in good hands!

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The MTMIC Annual Meeting is scheduled for Thursday, October 18th.

We will be meeting at the same location, The Inn at St. John’s and providing lunch along with a brief meeting and exciting speakers.

Please mark your calendars and be on the lookout for more details to follow.

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As President of MTM, my principle duties are to work with members, help MTM staff and work with the MTM Board of Directors and its Committees. However, there are some other duties that I must budget time for. One of those duties is to monitor insurance regulations and legislative matters. To accomplish this, I spend one or two days a month in Lansing meeting with the insurance association, insurance department and legislators. While nearly all of this designated legislative time deals with workers’ compensation issues, a recent item surfaced that departed from my normal focus. As a Board member and member of the regulatory oversight committee of the Insurance Institute of Michigan, I was made aware of nearly 20 bills that had been submitted for consideration dealing with the Larry Nassar case. As I listened to some of the testimony, I and everyone in the hearing were disgusted with this physician’s actions and the systems that should have caught his criminal activities over many years they occurred.

Most of these bills deal specifically with Larry Nassar and the systems surrounding him, however some bills are not so restricted and will bring other groups/1employers into the mix. Some of the bills being considered dramatically increase the reporting period for sexual misconduct incidents from two or three years to 30 years. Some of the bills change the burden of proof so that a mere allegation can be sufficient to warrant legal action, defense, and ultimately settlements. As defense attorneys look at how they would manage these cases, trying to pull witnesses together and accuracy of testimony (which could be many years or decades old) is daunting.

While MTM usually does not get involved in non-workers’ compensation issues, this case and the possible impact on our over 900 shop owners and managers warranted some involvement. Most recently, more moderate amendments have been considered that open up slightly the reporting period, except for alleged victims under 16. These bills seem to be progressing through the legislative process.

While it is too early yet to tell what exactly will come out of the legislature process, there is no doubt that changes to the existing law will happen.

While our focus continues to be on workers’ compensation and how to maintain and improve cost-effective coverage for our MTM members, occasionally we have to lend our weight to other issues. Protection of our members justifies it. As we learn more, I will bring you up to date on this topic. In the meantime, the MTM staff will continue to focus on providing our members with the most cost-effective and focused services for their workers’ compensation exposure.

By Chris Demeter, Senior Loss Control Consultant

Every year, workers are unnecessarily exposed to hazardous energy sources such as mechanical, hydraulic, pneumatic, chemical, thermal, gravity, or other energies utilized by machines in manufacturing. This occurs during servicing, maintenance, or setting up on equipment. Accidental start-up of machinery or unintended release of stored energy often presents catastrophic risks including but not limited to crush, amputation, shock, and burn injuries as well as equipment damage. This exposure can cause serious physical injuries or death to workers unaware that someone else has started a machine or energized a circuit. MIOSHA requires employers to establish a Lockout-Tagout program and use procedures for affixing appropriate lockout devices or tag out devices to energy isolating devices, and to otherwise disable machines or equipment to prevent unexpected re-energizing, start up or release of stored energy in order to prevent injury to employees.

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By Donna Motley, Vice President of Claims

As I was reading the newspaper recently and a heading caught my eye – “OFFICE FASHION – TATTOOS ARE IN – TIES ARE OUT”! WHAT? I was shocked. I know I’m going to “date” myself (first of all, I was “reading” an actual newspaper), but when I first started in the world of Claims for a large self-insured company, the claims were handled within the Law Department. As is somewhat customary, there was a senior attorney and a junior attorney. I worked for the junior attorney – and he had a “moustache”. You would have thought he committed a crime – attorneys at that time were frowned upon if they had any facial hair! (Again, I know I am dating myself.) Now, when at the Workers’ Compensation Agency, in addition to facial hair, I’ve even seen a pony tail or two!

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By the time you receive this newsletter, MTM staff will be in the final phase of delivering the 2018 member dividends. This year’s dividend is $4 million made up of two Board declarations. The $3.5 million amount matches the dividend amounts from March, 2017 and March, 2016. Plus this year the Board declared an additional $500,000 from savings of the tax bill signed into law in December. The total dividend amounts to an average dividend of 22% of member’s premium. Staff has 802 dividend checks. Delivery methods vary from mailing, to agency delivery, MTM Loss Control Reps, Megan Brown – VP of Marketing and Sales and me. Last year Megan and I drove over 12,000 miles in 3 weeks delivering checks to members. Each stop was a surprise, great conversation, plant tour and pictures.

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By Travis, Loss Control Consultant

Through every loss control visit, one particular hazard can be found in each facility. The hazard that I am speaking of is electricity. With each cord, disconnect, panel, receptacle and connection there are a plethora of hazards that must be guarded. Each of these electrical items have rules that pertain to them and failure to abide by these rules can not only provide the opportunity for severe injuries and possibly fatalities, but also the potential for substantial fines from the MIOSHA enforcement division. During a recent MIOSHA training class, the speakers informed the class that any and all electrical infractions will now hold a minimum $5,000 fine. That is only a minimum, as if they feel that the particular infraction is negligent then the fine will only escalate from there. While the fines are an eye opening factor, the safety of the employees should always remain as our top priority.

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MTM Member Dividends

On February 15th, the MTM Board of Directors met and approved a member’s dividend based on calendar year 2017 results. With the dividend proposal approved, we will be hitting the road beginning Monday, March 5th for delivery of those checks. Before I get into the details of the dividend, I will update you on the events of the last six weeks in case my recent article on this was missed.

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This is a time of year when we see many MTM member requests for a certificate of insurance or waiver of subrogation. Many of our shop members never need either of these items. However, if your shop does installation work of a product or is often at a customer’s plant location, you know full well about the use of these two documents. This year we’ve seen an uptick in the number of members that request these forms and thought it was a good time to review for all of MTM members.For a global perspective on these documents, you need to know that these are documents requested by customers of our MTM members. Neither document provides coverage for the MTM member, but rather it provides coverage certainty to the MTM customers. In the case of the certificate of insurance, if your worker is at a customer’s location and gets injured, the customer wants to know that you have workers’ compensation coverage. The customer does not want to “inherit” the injured worker’s claims costs. Similarly, for your shop if you hire a company to work at your plant and an employee of the hired company is hurt, does that company you hired have workers’ compensation coverage? If not, that loss most often moves to the next employer in line, which would be the MTM member. This “ladder” of coverage for workers’ comp was intended to find coverage for an injured worker. If his direct employer is not covered, then the system works up the ladder until coverage is found. With a certificate of insurance, you are getting certainty that an injured worker will be covered by his employer.

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By Donna Motley, Vice President of Claims

We’ve had good days and we’ve had bad days – winter weather that is. About a week ago it snowed 6 days out of 7 days – I know, because I had to shovel the snow! The most recent week, we’ve had a couple days of solid rain and it reached 60 degrees. All in February! What does that kind of weather do to a Claims Department that handles accidents and injuries?

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The MTMIC Annual Meeting is scheduled for Thursday, October 18th. We will be meeting at the same location, The Inn at St. John’s and providing lunch along with a brief meeting and exciting speakers. Please mark your calendars and be on the lookout for more details to follow.

Interesting Ending for 2017

On December 30th we closed the MTM financial year. The same day we sent all of our claims data and premium information to our actuary for loss reserve calculations. This review with independent peer evaluation takes about three weeks and is required by the Michigan Insurance department. When this is completed we will have a final picture of the financial results for 2017. One item different for MTM this year is that a member dividend was declared before the final results were completed. We have never done that before and have always waited until the complete financial picture is available before management’s estimates are disclosed. Our traditional method is the more precise way to handle our member’s dividend calculation.

However this year was different. Just before Christmas, President Trump signed a new tax law. Part of this law changed the company tax rate from 35% to 21%. This law affects your shops 1and MTM. Member dividends paid by MTM are a deduction from income and therefore reduce MTM taxes. On Christmas day, the MTM CFO contacted me to say he thinks we need to take advantage of the higher deduction in 2017 versus 2018 and declare the dividend early. This early dividend would reduce our taxable income for 2017. The net effect would be a 13% savings on every million dollars of income. Using the $3.5 million dividend from last year, a deduction on 12/28 results in a significant savings. This tax savings would turn into a benefit to MTM members.

On December 26th we ran the situation by the MTM Board Chairman, Jack Accardo. He jumped right in with management and contacted other Board members about the situation. A special Board vote was held December 27th and by a vote of 10 to 0, the Board declared a member dividend of $3.5 million payable in the usual time frame of early March. This was a little out of sequence but just as our shops sometimes have to do, you use the facts that are in front of you and manage the situation the best you can.A $3.5 million member dividend with a significant tax savings is a great way to start 2018.

Happy New Year.

By Glenda Moyle, Premium Accounting Manager

This is just a reminder that our auditing company, The Aprise Group will be completing the final audits for all MTMIC policyholders again this year. We have had a partnership with The Aprise Group for the past 25+ years. Once your policy expires, The Aprise Group will be contacting you within 30 days to set up an appointment to complete your audit. If you have any questions, please contact me at glenda.moyle@mtmic.com/blog or (248) 715-0015. Thank you for being a member of MTMIC.

Hope you’re having a wonderful holiday.

At MTM, staff in underwriting, sales and loss control are working hard on the December and January member renewals. While many members have minor renewal changes, others have added/deleted locations, new contracts with higher payroll or new operations in class codes. Sales and underwriting are working to apply the new member’s experience modifications and also making sure discounts each member has earned are applied to their policy renewal.

The MTM claims department and CFO are focused on closing out 2017 successfully. On December 30, our CFO sends 2017 financial and claims data to our actuary. The actuary studies our numbers compared to prior years and then trends these to come up with year-end financial results. Based on what management knows from our monthly reviews, 2017 will be a good year and member dividends are most likely. We will have the final data in late January.

Once Management has the final 2017 numbers; we go to the MTM Board Finance Committee, Board Marketing Committee and finally the Board of Directors in the first half of February. These meetings involve dividend discussions and final decisions are made. As a reminder all Board Committee members and Board members are MTM members themselves.

After the Committees and Board complete their work and decisions are made, MTM Management is next in the process. MTM staff produce the reports that back up the dividends and then Megan and I lead the delivery process. I should also note that the fun of member check deliveries are enjoyed/conducted by our loss control team also. In the last three years MTM has distributed $9.5 million to its members. We are excited to make this the fourth year in a row. We only have 9 days until the close of 2017. Just like young children at Christmas, MTM Management are counting the days to a successful year end. Finally a big thank you needs to go to you, our MTM members for your loss control work. In the end, our lower rates and member dividends are made possible only because of our member’s support of the loss control efforts and your assistance in claims cost management.

More dividend news soon.