Business Insurance RMIS Article

"Risk Managers Using Web to Help Workers: Online Risk Tools Start to Click"

September 1, 2003

By ALLISON REYNOLDS

Help may be just a click away. In order to make risk managers' jobs more efficient, organizations are relying more on risk management Web sites for employees to file claims, get their questions answered and find information on company policies.

"We recognized the need to create a system of information for our staff and students that was instantly available from almost anywhere in the world, easy to understand, constantly updated, consistent and available 24 hours a day," said Janet Stein, manager of insurance and risk management for the University of Calgary in Alberta, Canada.

Though some companies have had risk management Web sites for years, others are just beginning to get their sites up and running.

Sheree Mediavilla, risk manager for Collier County government in Naples, Fla., said that her organization is in the process of starting a risk management Web site to "speed things up" and to make the filing of claims more efficient and uniform.

Ms. Mediavilla said that her office is always inundated with calls with questions about filing claims and sees too many inconsistent, incorrect or illegible forms filled out by employees.

The Web site, which should be up in early October, will provide forms such as workers compensation first report of injury, general liability and auto and property forms that can be filled out electronically by employees, Ms. Mediavilla said.

To make things even easier, an employee can simply type in his or her employee identification number or Social Security number and most of the form is automatically filled out with information from the county's database.

That ensures that the information is correct and legible, Ms. Mediavilla added. Ms. Stein said that when the University of Calgary started a risk management Web site four or five years ago, all the forms on the site were in document format. They would be downloaded, filled out, attached to an e-mail and sent to the risk managers.

Now, though, the forms have been updated so that employees can fill them out online. The information from the forms is then sent directly to the database, improving efficiency. The information goes automatically to the people who need to have it, without the risk management department having to review and distribute it. That makes the process much faster and more economical, Ms. Stein said.

Another reason that risk managers have been using Web sites is to disseminate information to large numbers of people, thus eliminating multiple calls with the same questions, according to Sherry Pixler, risk manager for Louisville, Colo.-based StorageTek Corp. Most risk managers agree.

"Web sites are really good at answering stuff that lots of people ask or need to know—it's a mass communication tool," said Brian Warren, risk manager for Redmond, Wash.-based Microsoft Corp. "The struggle is to refine it so there is not too much information and people stop reading it."

Many risk management Web sites include a page of frequently asked questions to answer the most common sources of phone calls and e-mails to risk managers.

For example, the most frequently asked questions include those related to the filing of claims, requests for certificates of insurance, company policies on matters such as travel insurance and rental cars and how to handle various hypothetical situations.

Mr. Warren said that while e-mails still come in with commonly asked questions, the Web site has helped to a degree.

In addition to online forms and FAQs, contact information, event contracts, certificates of insurance and descriptions of various services are also available through risk management Web sites, according to risk managers.

For some organizations, the cost of starting a risk management Web site can be relatively small if the services of the information technology department are enlisted. Ms. Mediavilla said that the Collier County Web site is being created using the IT department and is incurring no outside costs.

StorageTek also constructed its risk management Web site using an in-house process and internal resources to cut down on costs, said Ms. Pixler. A company that opts to use an outside contractor to get the initial site up may find the process more expensive, according to Mr. Warren.

When Microsoft started its risk management Web site about five or six years ago, the cost of an outside contractor was $10,000 to $15,000 to get the initial site up, Mr. Warren said. He estimated that costs today would be in the range of $10,000 to $20,000 but could be less if the IT department already has a Web server up and running.

Getting a Web site started and deciding what to put on it may be the most difficult part of the process. Connie Burkhard, the loss control specialist for StorageTek, said that when the company started formulating the Web site, the whole risk management department got together to add input and ideas.

The Web site was launched before the company had any templates for its Web design, so portions of the site design were borrowed from the Web sites of other groups within the organization.
"The Web site has changed several times," Ms. Burkhard said. "That's the beauty of it—it's easy to change and update."

For example, forms on the Web site started out in a document format that would have to be attached to e-mails to be sent, but they now are in an online format and can be sent electronically directly to the correct recipient.

In addition, any program or policy information can be easily updated. Deciding on a coherent and easy-to-follow format for the Web site was also a concern for Ms. Stein, who said she and her co-workers spent many hours with pieces of paper, trying to lay out a logical progression of information on policies, claims, contact information and FAQs.

Ms. Burkhard added that actually creating the Web site is fairly easy, provided the creator has basic knowledge about the Internet, though she noted that an organization's IT department can be a big resource.

Deciding which information should be publicly accessible and which should be available only to employees and staff members is another concern, according to Ms. Stein.

Often a company will opt to place its risk management site on its company intranet. That puts the site behind a firewall and allows only authorized users to view it.

Another challenge with creating the Web site was determining which outside sites to link to as good information sources and then obtaining permission to link the Web page to those other sites, according to Ms. Stein.

Mr. Warren said that making a risk management Web site requires working with other groups, both within the company and externally, to provide hyperlinks to other sites. "One of the most interesting things is integrating with other groups on the Web site; it helps to streamline things on a real level, and not just on the Web site," he said, meaning that working with other groups within the company keeps them connected and informed.