Cavalcade of Risk #83

It is my privilege to host this week's Cavalcade of Risk. It is over 113 degrees here in Phoenix by noon on any given day, so in keeping with the weather, I have picked only the hottest posts about risk, both personal and private, and a few important blogs about the upcoming health care transition this country may expect in the coming years.

One note: my blog platform is tricky and will take you out of this blog when you click a hyperlink, so be sure to hit the "back" button to return!

Personal Risk and One Slightly Gross Dog Topic

First, I want to post a powerful post about personal risk and persevering even after adversity blows in. Toni Graybill presents tonig.net: Welcome to My World of Wealth posted at Maximize Health and Wealth.

ID Theft blogger Robert Siciliano, writing at the Blogger News Network, warns about increased risk of identity theft when using an ATM, and offers some helpful tips to mitigate it.

Since I am currently "house poor," here's a post I liked. Rohit presents 5 personal finance lessons we all should re-learn from the present financial crisis posted at eMoneyLog.

As long as we are on personal risk, I am going to include a post about dog health. Who hasn't rushed their dog into the vet and been bitten by a several hundred dollar vet bill? This post gives some general guidelines. Now, I am going to give you a tip that can literally save you hundreds of dollars. This post mentions taking your dog to the vet if diarrhea lasts more than one day. Au contraire mon frere. I have saved literally thousands of dollars during my dog-owning decades with this simple trick: a can of pumpkin.

I own German or Czech shepherds. I am a big promoter of the German shepherd dog and believe in buying imports or dogs bred here from recent European lines. Because breeding standards in Germany and the Czech Republic are much stronger than they are in the US, the health and temperament of imports is generally excellent.

From time to time, my dog Romy will open the refrigerator door and have a feast or I will succumb to human sympathies and feed the pups people food, which doesn't always agree with their digestion. When my dogs get diarrhea, I simply open a can of plain pumpkin and take them off solid food, feeding them pumpkin for a day. The second day I mix in pumpkin and a little kibble or rice, and voila, in almost every case, symptoms solved. Most dogs love the taste, so don't worry about that. If the symptom doesn't resolve in two days, I would consider trotting them off (excuse the pun) to the vet, but I can't recall a time I have had to do so in the past decade and a half since I've been using this trick. For a laugh, visit the "unindicted co-conspirators" at my website.

I believe the high costs of vet care in the US precludes families from adopting dogs, so anything I can do to keep a dog out of the vet I hope keeps more dogs out of shelters.

Risk Management

If you have been following the swirl surrounding the "United Breaks Guitars" video, my post this week reminds us of what can happen when a mega corporation forgets about the power of today's media. If you haven't seen the video, I highly recommend you watch it. It is available at the link offered above.

The folks at Workers Comp Insider looks at cost and compensability issues related to sports injuries at college and at the gym.

Finally, Tim Norris of National RE Insurance Group offers some advice on workers' compensation exposure for the real estate investor at this link.

Health Care

Okay, now that I have probably grossed you out but saved you lots of money, let's move on to health care issues. I ponder why every industrialized nation in the world has some type of universal health care and we have been unable to do so. I know we are moving forward, but I cannot help but worry that what we Americans will end up with will resemble sausage more than filet.

Of concern to many Americans is the need for long-term health care coverage and this post by Jeff Rose at Good Financial Cents offers some tips on when and what type of coverage you should buy.

John Leppard offers Congress Can't Run the Risk of Ignoring Risk posted at Healthcare Manumission.

Wenchypoo is always interesting and doesn't fail this week. We present Wenchypoo's Health Care Proposal posted at Wisdom From Wenchypoo's Mental Wastebasket.

Jason Shafrin presents Public Plan enrollment freeze posted at Healthcare Economist.

Tyler King presents You can't solve a problem that you haven't defined posted at Clarifying Health. Tyler, I couldn't have said it better myself.

Next, Henry Stern, LUTCF, CBC presents Throwing Grandma Under the Train posted at InsureBlog.

Finally, the immodest Jaan Sidorov of the Disease Management Care Blog disagrees with Paul Krugman on the viability of markets for health insurance. He provides theory and evidence that suggest that the market can work and urges Dr. Krugman to get out of the way.

Our roundup of risk is complete. Have a safe and quality week.

Your RFP response is a critical factor in winning that account

More and more, large organizations seeking professional services like adjusting services, prescription benefits programs or agent / broker services turn to Requests for Proposal (RFP) to choose the best provider. For many service providers, responding to RFPs the first few times can be intimidating. A professional writer can help.

Case Study

A life and health agent in a small town of about 30,000 wanted to compete for a local organization's group health benefits coverage. The organization had gone out with an RFP for broker services the previous year and the brokerage, although submitting a proposal, failed to win the business. The hospital went out for services again last month and the brokerage turned to Insurance Writer for help in preparing the RFP.

As a former risk manager who both wrote and, as a consultant, responded to RFPs, I am in a unique position to help service providers craft excellent responses. I know what purchasing officers look for reviewing RFP responses. Today’s purchasing officer reviews, normally with a team of experienced personnel, many RFPs when attempting to procure services. Your response must stand out from the crowd.

The process we used allowed the agent to answer as many questions as he could in writing in the format of the RFP response. Then in a short series of interviews we determined his hidden strengths and where these assets could flesh out the RFP response. With our help, this agent stands a much better chance to win this bid. As an additional benefit, he can use this same RFP response and its format for future responses since so many RFPs ask for the same information again and again.

Here is the best part. The agent paid less than one percent of his potential commission in this matter to give him the edge he needs to win this important bid. Are you willing to invest a little to win? You will be surprised at how affordable our services are. Call us at 602.870.3230 if we can help.

This week's Cavalcade of Risk is now posted

For a great overview of the healthcare system reforms and other risk-related matters, visit the Cav.

Cavalcade of Risk

The new Cavalcade of Risk is posted here. My article on the ADA and injured worker accommodation appears, but the entire issue this month is particularly interesting. Check it out!

New column on Allbusiness.com

Visit this link to view my latest column on disability management.

Cut advertising costs by hiring direct

Like almost every independent agent or broker I speak with across the country, you are probably trying to shrink your advertising budget yet keep your brand highly visible. Would you like to how? If you are paying your advertising agency to create your insurance or risk management copy, there is a strong possibility they are outsourcing the creation of that copy to me, or someone just like me.

That’s right, you may be paying 40-to-50 percent more for the creation of your material than you should. Don't pay overhead to agencies who either utilize in-house writers inexperienced in insurance, taking much longer to produce copy, or outsource their writing to specialists like me, then mark up those charges.

Call me today for a free consultation. With over twenty years of risk management and insurance experience, I can furnish you with copy that will make your advertising collateral shine.

Common sense risk management

Just before Christmas I was searching for a gag gift for one of my friends. I was shopping with several adjusters, and adjusters and insurance professionals, generally speaking, have very twisted senses of humor. This probably arises as a coping mechanism for dealing with mutilation, foolishness and death on a daily basis. But I digress.

I found a book of postcards titled Grandma’s Dead: Breaking Bad News with Baby Animals. As we read through the postcards, and many of them were quite graphic, we laughed so heartily and for so long that other bookstore customers began to gather around to see what all the fuss was about. Let's face it, in these economic times, everyone is looking for a laugh.

In short, the book is a series of postcard pictures of beautiful baby animals with captions like “Recycling Won’t Work," "The Meteor Can't Be Stopped," or, one germane to this post, “There is no Santa Claus.” Some of the captions are in extremely poor taste, but some are downright hilarious. See a preview at http://www.amazon.com/Grandmas-Dead-Breaking-News-Animals/dp/0061673765/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1230586397&sr=8-1

As I was zooming through a slideshow last night of the people and funds that were hit in the Madoff scandal, I couldn’t help but think of the old adage that rings true especially today: “If it looks to good to be true, it probably isn’t.” One of the fund victims stated that participants questioned why they were consistently achieving about 10 percent return on investment when the global financial markets were melting down. Now they know.

What can we learn from this tragic lesson, which has rocked both charities and personal fortunes and led, so sadly, to one apparent suicide? The lesson is simple, and it is in the book Grandma’s Dead: “There is no Santa Claus.”
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Unfortunately, the impact of this crash is going to ruin many people’s holidays, probably for years to come.

If you are an agent and would like to help your commercial customers better manage their risk, refer them to my blog on AllBusiness.com at http://www.allbusiness.com/4974114-1.html. Each week I give tips to help small-to-medium sized businesses better manage their risks.

Cavalcade of Risk #67

This is my first hosting of the Cavalcade of Risk, which is made up of some of the tops blog entries on risk management written in the past few weeks. Perhaps it is the economy, maybe it is the holiday, but for whatever reason, most of the submissions have leaned toward personal finance and I have weeded most of them out. Perhaps that's because many of us are currently paper paupers. I don't know about you, but with layoffs abounding in the insurance industry and beyond, I am grateful today for the security provided by this great career.

We did have some great risk management submissions, though. Because I am by trade an insurance marketing person, I read with a cautious eye Wenchypoo's entry, The Con in Lexicon, where we are told how "mere words can rob us blind." I must say, though, I agreed with the entry and even added my own suggestion: Value-Added Tax (VAT). Although I love my Irish scarf, it is not one iota more valuable because I paid my VAT.

We have several health insurance-related posts this month, including Richard Eskow at Sentinel Effect, who suggests another approach to the auto bailout: What if the government funded and managed the Big Three's health benefits instead? The Obama team could build a working model of health reform, Richard thinks.

Another health care post is one from Jaan Sidorov at Disease Management Care. In this post, physician and ex-medical director Jaan Sidorov examines how health insurers think about generic drugs and the tricks they use to promote their use and manage their trend.

Also posting this month is Jay Norris from the Colorado Health Insurance Insider, who tells us in his entry that just providing health insurance to the uninsured would still leave us with a pretty big mess. We don't have enough primary care docs, our drugs are too expensive, our hospitals are too focused on turning a profit, we spend more than any other country on our healthcare, and yet our results are mediocre at best.

Joe Paduda of Managed Care Matters gives us the gift of his insight in his blog, We Have to Deal with Costs. Clearly, the nation is at a crossroads in health coverage. The next few years will be interesting and expensive, no matter what happens.

Some companies will do anything to meet analyst and shareholder earning expectations, according to this post. Backdating contracts is one way to achieve this goal. By backdating contracts so that the revenues can be recorded for the current quarter, management is essentially recording future revenues in the current quarter. If you are considering investing, according to Qovax, take time to read both the auditor's report and the K-8s. Better yet, read this post.

In the Sun's Financial Diary, we are told the obvious: That diversification may not work in the current economic market. This article is short on answers, but what the heck, I'm in the holiday spirit.

Carson Brackney, the Personal Finance Analyst, blogs on a topic I have unfortunately experienced firsthand: a major illness sans long-term disability coverage. In Long-Term Disability Coverage Makes Sense, Brackney outlines the top reasons we need this vital coverage. In case you are wondering, I will be working much longer than I anticipated due to my lack of foresight. What are you waiting for? Call your agent.

Here's a post from the Monevator on why the riskiest assets to buy right now could be the safest: US treasuries. This article explains why.

Whenever I see the name Chris Boggs I read him because he is a strong writer and very knowledgeable. I tracked him down on My New Markets, which he edits. Boggs fills us in on Insurance for Bloggers (in three parts). Bloggers, beware!

InsureBlog gives us a really insightful post on sharia-based insurance. Is it good risk management or a cover for terror-enabling? Henry Stern takes a look at this controversial new product. I just have one question. Can women underwrite or handle the claims for the sharia-based coverage? Many interesting avenues to this post, so don't miss it.

In a timely article given that several New York workers' compensation trusts have gone belly up, Julie Ferguson of Workers Comp Insider tells us what happens to your workers' comp claim if your insurer or your employer declares bankruptcy.

In this time of economic turmoil, many of us will be either giving or receiving loans from relatives. This quick post from Bargaineering outlines some tips to help us lend without running afoul of the IRS.

This week I tackle public relations and recommend a great book in my blog Risk Management for the 21st Century. Bad PR is a killer to firms large and small, so take a gander.

To end on a humorous note, here is a great entry I found in The Employment Law Post entitled, Booze, Porn Addictions and Interventions: What a Holiday Party. I used to think I was a pretty good boss until I started watching The Office and realized I had more in common with Michael than I cared to admit. If you missed that episode of the office, see if you can find it somewhere. It's a hoot.

If you would like to post in an upcoming blog, feel free to submit to Cavalcade of Risk using our carnival submission form. Past posts and future hosts can be found on our blog carnival index page.

Have a safe and risk-averse holiday.

An example of bad business writing

Sorry to dog the English since they usually do have a better command of the English language than do Americans, but here's an example of business writing at is worst.

This was recently disseminated interoffice in an insurance setting in England:

The new Bulletins system was launched on 24 March 2008. This is information regarding how HO Underwriting will utilise the system to communicate changes. Previously, communications specific to the Regions were termed Circulars andthose to Agents were Technical Bulletins. All information will now be issued via the system as Bulletins, so to differentiate between them for the purposes of explaining how the system will be used, we will refer to circulars as "regional instructions" and Technical bulletins as "general instructions".

Regions will receive advance notice of general instructions via e-mail.When published, Regions and Agents will receive the standard e-mail notification produced by the system. If you do not receive the automated e-mails that colleagues get, please contact the Service Desk to check your inclusion in the e-mail group "Networked Group Secretaries" or "UnderwritingBulletins (Advance Notice)" (or a sub-group therein). [Editorial comment: If you didn't get it, how do you know you didn't get it?]

General instructions will be made available for everyone to read and can be accessed through the Bulletin system via the (their internal intranet).(Link on the left side of the Agents page and also on the Underwriting homepage). Some bulletins may only be relevant to the Regional Underwriters (regional instructions), in which case they will be targeted at this group so that others do not receive unnecessary communications.

Therefore, if some bulletins have a limited audience, an individual's view may not include all sequencial numbers, but you will have access to bulletins relevant to yourself. Details are included in the Underwriting Procedures manual, (accessed via the Underwriting Manuals page on (their internal intranet) under: Account Management Programme / Underwriting Bulletins : Guide to issuingUnderwriting Instructions (via the Bulletins system).

Please continue to liaise with your Region regarding clarification of the detail of any bulletins, who can then liaise with HO as necessary. Any problems accessing the Bulletin system itself can be directed to the Service Desk.

Whew! I don't know about you, but I'm lost! Can you really afford to send that kind of communication to your staff? If the information is important enough to communicate, it should be right! Business communications should be crisp, clear and to the point. People can't and won't take the time to "extract" the message from the mess.

C-Level executives obtain most of their purchasing information on line

If your business isn't advertising on line, you may be losing access to the key decision makers in today's businesses: C-level executives such as CEOs, CROs, CFOs, and CLOs.

Forbes recently completed a blind survey of 286 C-level executives and found they spend an average of 16 hours weekly on the Web, not including using e-mail. 64 percent of the respondents viewed eight or more Websites per month looking for business and financial information.

Compared to the time the C-execs spent on other resources,if you aren't making use of web advertising, you may be missing your audience.

Here is the time C-execs spent viewing other medium:

• TV 8.6 hours per week
• Magazines 6.6 hours per week
• Newspapers 6.6 hours per week
• Radio 5.7 hours per week

Should you rethink your advertising dollars? If so, please call to view our innovative HTML advertising campaigns or White Papers that have helped drive traffic to our clients' sites. We have helped dozens of financial services companies build a strong web presence. We would love to help you deliver a crisp, clear message that reaches your intended audience at a rate that is amazingly affordable.

Call (602) 870-3230 for a rapid response.

Upcoming speaking engagement

Nancy Germond will address the Loss Executives Association's (LEA) 77th Spring Meeting and Educational Conference in Portland, Main, on June 12, 2008. Her session, "Brain Drain in the Insurance Industry," provides proactive tips for managing, retaining and training insurance industry personnel. With more than one quarter of the U.S. population eligible to retire in the next few years, this topic is critical to the strategic management of insurance organizations.

The LEA is the premier source of education and training of property claims managers nationwide.

Nancy's articles appear in industry trade journals and her weekly column, "Risk Management for the 21st Century," appears on Allbusiness.com.

Selling workers' compensation coverage

Tired of competing solely on price? Then watch this video and learn:

1) An overview of experience rating
2) Nine key concepts of experience rating that employers need to understand
3) The process of using ModMaster to compute a mod
4) Interpreting ModMaster reports
5) Communicating the 9 key concepts using ModMaster reports, and
6) Taking the next step by introducing WorkCompEdge