{"id":167493,"date":"2025-11-15T02:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-11-15T02:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.mtmic.com\/blog\/?p=167493"},"modified":"2026-05-04T23:22:27","modified_gmt":"2026-05-04T23:22:27","slug":"what-is-an-accident","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mtmic.com\/blog\/2025\/11\/what-is-an-accident\/","title":{"rendered":"What is an Accident"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Donna Motley
Vice President of Claims<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I have been processing Claims my entire adult working career. And not just processing Workers\u2019 Compensation claims. Many years ago I also processed property damage and motor vehicle claims. While working at my former employer, I had a middle management supervisor tell me \u201cthere is no such thing as an accident\u201d. Think about that statement for a minute. I do not believe the statement means an incident that occurred was \u201cintentional\u201d, I think it means it could have been \u201cprevented or avoided\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Ask yourself how or why do accidents occur? I recently read a good test following an accident is to ask \u201cwhy\u201d five times to get to the root cause of any problem. Were you rushing \u2013 why? Because you were late \u2013 why? Because you overslept \u2013 why? Because you stayed up too late the night before \u2013 why? Because you were watching the Lions win a game \u2013 why? Because the Lions are finally doing well and we are excited and hopeful to go to playoffs! Does this remind you of when your child was small and would continually ask why? It\u2019s kind of fun to play out and maybe with surprising results. In the workforce, once you know the \u201cwhy\u201d, corrective action can be implemented.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I believe the same article I read also mentioned \u201csecond order thinking\u201d \u2013 defined as \u2013 consider future impacts by asking \u201cwhat comes next\u201d What comes next could be an accident and or injury OR corrective action \u2013 how to assure the same accident does not occur again. Thinking \u201cif I rush, I may drive erratically which can result in an accident\u201d or \u201cif I rush, it is easier to slip, trip and\/or fall\u201d. Maybe the current terminology is \u201cbeing pro-active\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Or maybe this all means we just need to \u201cSLOW DOWN\u201d. MTM\u2019s Loss Control Department basically instructs employers to be pro-active. Do you have lights that are burned out? Are there cracks in the floor or parking lot pavement? Are rugs curling on the ends? Are stairway guard rails secure? Are hoses, cardboard, shavings laying on the ground? Was there an oil spill not cleaned up properly? These are all relatively minor items that can create a hazardous situation and all relatively easy to resolve to avoid a hazardous situation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My last take away from what I read : \u201c1% daily improvement leads to 37 times \u2018growth\u2019 in one year.\u201d I\u2019m not sure who comes up with these statistics, but it makes sense. O.K. \u2013 I\u2019ll go back to reading my Harlan Coben books now!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Donna MotleyVice President of Claims I have been processing Claims my entire adult working career. And not just processing Workers\u2019 Compensation claims. Many years ago I also processed property damage and motor vehicle claims. While working at my former employer, I had a middle management supervisor tell me \u201cthere is no such thing as…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":167495,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,4,5,7,8,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-167493","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-claims","category-compliance","category-disability","category-loss-control","category-prevention","category-safety"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.mtmic.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/2025-11_02a.jpeg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mtmic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167493","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mtmic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mtmic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtmic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtmic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=167493"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtmic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167493\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":167502,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtmic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167493\/revisions\/167502"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtmic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/167495"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mtmic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=167493"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtmic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=167493"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtmic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=167493"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}