IRMI Update—Issue #97

An E-mail Newsletter for Risk and Insurance Professionals
ISSN: 1530-7948
September 28, 2004

In This Issue

• Message from the Editor
• Risk Tip: Go Beyond Loss Runs in Your Submissions
• New Expert Commentary
• Construction Conference Approved for CE Credit
• New MCS-90 Book Now Available
• Your View—Employee Computer Crime
• How to Get IRMI Update E-mails

Message from the Editor

Colleague,

We recently performed an analysis of our customer base to try to quantify the trend toward online access of reference material. By customer base, I mean those firms that purchase subscriptions to IRMI reference manuals and newsletters. The results are very interesting, and I thought I would share some of what we learned.

Insurance agents and brokers represent a large component of our customer base, and they have definitely been moving their subscriptions to the online arena. For example, 76 of the top 100 (including 9 of the top 10) brokers—as ranked by Business Insurance—currently are providing all of their employees with online access to IRMI publications through SilverPlume or IRMI Online. We're seeing a similar trend with insurers. Currently 37 major insurers give all their employees online access to IRMI publications through SilverPlume or IRMI Online. This includes 4 of the 5 largest commercial lines insurers.

Risk managers are the third major component of our subscriber base (for example, some 84 percent of the Fortune 500 companies are customers). They also seem to be jumping on the Internet bandwagon, though the move isn't as rapid as with the insurance industry.

Of course, we still have thousands of customers who elect to receive their manual supplements and newsletters in print form. However, the rapid shift from print to electronic delivery in the last 2 years has caused our heads to spin.

This is further evidence of the trend toward using technology to increase the efficiency and accuracy of people in business. Where print reference manuals were once stored in a central area for all to share, they are now just a click away for anyone in the organization. This also illustrates our ever-growing dependence on the Internet and the need to keep it secure.

If you subscribe to our publications in print or online, let me thank you again for your business. It is an honor to serve your risk management and insurance information needs.

We are only 6 weeks away from the 24th IRMI Construction Risk Conference. As one veteran attendee recently told me, "Orlando in the winter is good!" I hope to see you there.

Have a great day.

Jack

Jack P. Gibson
President
International Risk Management Institute, Inc.

Risk Tip

Go Beyond Loss Runs in Your Submissions—To effectively structure and negotiate retention levels or deductibles, the risk professional must have a clear understanding of the organization's historical loss experience. The vast majority of underwriting submissions only include recently valued loss runs. Loss stratifications and loss development triangles are also needed to ensure that underwriting and organizational decision-making are on a firm foundation. To compile loss stratifications, the risk professional should first trend individual claims to current dollars using published claim cost indices, then calculate the amounts that fall within various deductible/retention levels on a current dollar basis. Loss development triangles using total paid, total incurred, number reported, and closed claims should also be included in the submission to demonstrate the effect of the organization's unique risk management practices on claims costs and closure rates, particularly important for liability and workers compensation lines. If you are dealing with claims data from multiple insurers, check to see if the definition of "incurred loss" consistently includes (or excludes) allocated loss adjustment expenses and recoveries. Some insurers' claims systems allow the risk professional to download historical claims experience into a spreadsheet program, making it much easier to produce these value added reports.

By: Brenda M. Olson, MBA, ARM, CPCU
President & Principal Consultant
ORG Risk Management / ORG Captive Management
Bigfork, MT

www.orgcaptives.com

Suggest a Risk Tip. Send us a practical tip (less than 300 words) for identifying and managing risks, buying insurance, managing claims, or filling gaps in insurance coverages. We'll acknowledge your contribution as we did for Brenda.

New Expert Commentary

There are now 584 risk management and insurance articles on IRMI.com. Below you'll find summaries of some recent additions with links to the articles.

• Deming's Point #4 as it Applies to the Insurance Industry—"End the practice of awarding business on the basis of price tag alone." John Pryor discusses this W. Edwards Deming principle along with real-world examples.
• "Controlled Substance" Exclusion in Homeowners Policy Bars Coverage—In this personal lines courts and coverage column, Richard Valentino examines recent cases dealing with insurance coverage for drug dealer liability.
• E-mail Privacy: Does Your E-mail Take a Pit Stop?—The Privacy Council discusses a recent federal appeals court decision which held that reading e-mail messages awaiting delivery to recipients is not a violation of the Wiretap Act.
• Design-Builder Not Entitled to Equitable Adjustment—Whether patent or latent, if an ambiguity arises in design-build documents, contractors need to clarify with the project owner before proceeding. Kent Holland explains a recent court ruling.
• Multiyear Policies and Annualization of Reinsurance Limits—Where progressive injuries span more than a year, is the injury a separate occurrence in each of those years, and does the full liability limit apply? Larry Schiffer examines the case law.
• Ordinary Negligence Involving Toxic Chemicals Not Pollution—Barry Zalma examines a recent California Supreme Court ruling which concluded that the CGL pollution exclusion does not exclude ordinary acts of negligence involving toxic chemicals.
• The Courts and Equitable Subrogation versus Equitable Contribution—In the second of a three-part series, Joseph Postel examines court rulings on additional insured status and how courts have treated—and often confused—equitable contribution and equitable subrogation.

Construction Conference Approved for CE Credit

Agents, accountants, architects, engineers, and lawyers —get the continuing education (CE) credit you need at the IRMI Construction Risk Conference in Orlando on November 8-11. We file the entire 3 1/2-day with a large number of state licensing boards and professional organizations. For the first time this year, the conference is being filed with the AIA for architect's continuing education. As we obtain approvals, the number of credit hours available for each day of attendance will be posted on a state-by-state (and profession) basis on the Conference Web site.

New MCS-90 Book Now Available

The Motor Carrier Act of 1980 requires that the MCS-90 endorsement be attached to insurance policies covering auto liability exposures of certain types of businesses. But it is a highly misunderstood and often litigated one-page endorsement. The MCS-90 Book—Truckers versus Insurers and the Government Makes Three clarifies the pitfalls, coverage traps, underwriting concerns, and claims issues lying under the surface of this seemingly innocuous endorsement. Written by the Consulting, Legal, and Expert Witness (CLEW) Section of the CPCU Society, this book will explain the Act, the endorsement, the policy forms, and the litigation issues. For more information, visit the Products & Services section of IRMI.com.

Your View: Employee Computer Crime

In IRMI Update 96, Jack Gibson asked readers whether they encountered employees using the company's computers to steal and, if so, what safeguards did they use to handle this exposure. Following are the responses received.

• To deter computer crimes by employees:

  1) Limit access to the building with electronic card keys that store access data on the employee.

  2) Require internal electronic safeguards, checks and balances -- electronic approval is required by one or more persons in the hierarchy.

  3) Perform random internal audits.

  —Louie Allocco, Claims Advocate Supervisor, Willis, Global Operations, Nashville

• I just experienced hiring someone from an employment agency who stole checks from two of my accounts (one business account and the other, my personal account) and forged my name on 24 checks. When using my online banking, I discovered a check out of sequence in an amount I did not remember writing. After pulling it up online to view the front and back of the check, I saw that it was endorsed by the employee's father. I approached him at which time he denied knowing anything about the check. I terminated his employment and filed a police report.

  One month later, he approached the cleaning crew after hours acting as if he forgot something in the office and they let him in the office. This time, he stole checks from another business trust account, a new computer, and flat screen I had just purchased for his use in the office, money from my desk, client gifts such as Sees Candy Certificates, Blockbuster Certificates, a postal scale, checks in my drawer that I had not taken to the bank, his employment file with all the information from the first violation, and my signature stamp!

  Needless to say, I have spent hours between filing another police report, sending fraud verification to each of the businesses where he cashed my checks, having affidavits notarized, closing three checking accounts and reopening new accounts, coordinating each detail with the investigators, etc., etc., etc. Come to find out, he had been accused of committing a similar crime and had a scheduled court date this month.

  I have requested all the information on this person from the employment agency who sent him to us, but have received nothing. I can only tell you, it has been a nightmare and a waste of energy that I could have devoted elsewhere in a more productive endeavor.

  It would be very informative to know exactly what information a prospective employer is entitled to and where to get this information to prevent the hiring of someone with a past history of fraud or at the very least, to find out if the person is being accused of a crime. At this point, I am reluctant to consider hiring another employee until I determine what my rights are in finding out about someone's past crime history.

  —Lorie Hart, Lorie Hart Insurance, Laguna Hills, CA

• Employee theft is still "employee theft" no matter how it is done. Seems like there will always be reasons for employees to steal from their employer. My personal opinion is that most thieves eventually get caught, but I guess the really good ones we never know about. Some of our sister companies have had employee thefts by manipulating data or information on the computer but not by hacking per se. The list of "to dos" in your message (password protection, background checks, drug testing, monitoring) are all things we do and as part of a larger financial institution we are constantly on the watch. We also make these suggestions to our clients. As respects our clients, I am not aware of any employee dishonesty claims via theft by computer. Maybe they/we have just been lucky?

  To me the big issue I have personally is with spam. I have somehow gotten on an list and cannot get off. I tried all the spam blocker techniques our internal IT staff has suggested and still receive as many as 70 spam e-mails a day.

  Jack, I am really afraid that someday the Internet/e-mail system will be shut down by abuse of the system. If that happens, it will cost all of us untold amounts. I guess we can go back to the days before Internet. Even though I am old, and I know the old way of using pony express, I really do not want that to happen. Jack, if that happens, you probably really would see a decline in responses to your messages -- me for one!

  —Jim Sammons, CIC, Vice President, Guaranty Insurance Services, Inc., Austin, TX

• My problem isn't that any of my employees would steal from the company. We have very devoted employees here. The problem is web surfing and downloading off the Internet. I am getting ready to purchase new computers and will buy software to safeguard the computers against downloading stuff.

  Every morning, I open my e-mail and get no less than 150 spams. We do have a server, but our Internet provider is COX. I need a good spam blocker, as well.

  —Diane Russell, Office Manager, COMP Risk Management, Inc., Oklahoma City

• I have not seen people use company computers to steal, but people are being forced to use computers as a replacement for information previously available in paper form. People that do not own or know how to operate computers are being left behind because workplaces and society in general are pushing towards a paperless environment. In some ways, this makes us all more vulnerable.

  As an example, do you feel safer paying your bills by writing a check and mailing it in or by paying it online? Sure, you save a stamp and have the convenience of paying a bill with a few clicks of a computer mouse, but you are also revealing private information about yourself to an unknown array of "watchers." Lately when I go online at home, it seems like my Internet provider is keeping track of what time of day I am signing on to my computer.

  —Patty Black, CIC, CPCU, AU, Commercial Underwriting, Grange Mutual Casualty Company, Columbus, OH

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