Copyright © 2001 Business Insurance

Risk, benefit managers find Web functions helpful October 8, 2001

By SALLY ROBERTS and MICHAEL PRINCE

The Internet continues to change the way risk managers and benefit managers do their jobs.

A few simple Internet searches using the key words ``risk management,'' ``insurance,'' ``workers compensation'' or ``employee benefits'' will produce myriad Web sites and electronic products and services.

Business Insurance recently polled risk and benefits managers to find out which Web functions-ranging from e-mail and chat rooms to online research-are making their lives easier. Respondents were also asked to identify any potentially useful functions they still find lacking in cyberspace.

While nearly all risk and benefits managers would agree that the Internet has radically changed their work, there is little consensus about which Web functions are most useful to insurance professionals.

``I have all of my risk management forms on our intranet Web site, and it's just invaluable,'' said Jeffrey W. Pettegrew, vp-risk management and insurance for Westaff Inc. in Walnut Creek, Calif. Mr. Pettegrew said that last month he was able, for the first time, to tell staff members located in more than 300 offices around the country that they could discard their printed manuals.

``E-mail is my most commonly used Web function,'' said Roger Andrews, director of risk management in Provo, Utah, for E.D. Bullard Co. ``I use it a lot. I'm a telecommuter, and e-mail has allowed me to be much more productive, especially with the extra travel that I have done for RIMS over the past couple of years, '' he said, referring to the New York-based Risk & Insurance Management Society Inc., of which he is a past president.

James E. Crockett, manager of risks and benefits for water authority Denver Water said he most often uses the Web to look up information about various benefits and risk management practices. Mr. Crockett said he regularly researches risk and benefits consultants, survey results and regulations issued by the U.S. Internal Revenue Service.

Many risk and benefit managers note that the Internet has made conducting research much easier.

For example, Nancy Lazgin, director of global benefits at office supplies retailer Staples Inc. in Framingham, Mass., said that prior to implementing a work/life program at Staples a few years ago, she investigated the topic on the Internet. In addition to finding sites hosted by colleges that contained information about work/life issues, Ms. Lazgin found an AT&T Corp. site that documented that company's implementation of its own work/life program.

``It was absolutely super on details about telecommuting,'' Ms. Lazgin said.

For many risk and benefits managers, it is the Web sites established by their own insurers that offer them the most.

Charlene Edwards, vp-employee benefits at Lend Lease Real Estate Investments Inc. in Atlanta, noted, for example, that she finds the Web site of her health insurer, Minneapolis-based UnitedHealthcare, to be particularly valuable. The site provides up-to-date information about providers in the UnitedHealthcare network, lists drugs in its formulary and permits employees to track their claims, Ms. Edwards said. In addition, she noted, the site offers articles on health-related topics.

Lend Lease placed a link to the UnitedHealthcare Web site on its own intranet site. Giving employees access to the insurer's site is ``a great way to become more and more paperless,'' Ms. Edwards said.

Staples' Ms. Lazgin said that when she's looking for health care information, she visits the Web site of one of her company's largest health care providers, Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Massachusetts.

``It has a whole wealth of information out there that I was surprised to see on a Web site,'' she said. In addition to information on the BC/BS plan itself, the site contains links to sites to shop for vitamins, baby food and other health-related items, she said. Ms. Lazgin added that the BC/BS site also has a link to the Mayo Clinic Web site, which maintains an online library of articles on health topics.

Risk managers also find their insurers' Web sites useful.

Lance Ewing, senior director of insurance and loss prevention at GES Exposition Services in Las Vegas, for example, said that the best Web function he has found comes from his property insurer, Factory Mutual Insurance Co., which does business as FM Global.

Mr. Ewing said he receives an e-mail from Johnston, R.I.-based FM Global every morning that keeps him informed about approaching hurricanes and tornadoes. Those messages enable him to prepare his employees located around the country for the arrival of bad weather.

``That's been extremely helpful in getting information out to my folks,'' Mr. Ewing said. ``It makes my job much, much easier. ''

But risk and benefits managers are quick to point out potentially useful work-related functions they find lacking on the Web.

``I still think the products and services available via the Web that support our risk management efforts, particularly enterprise risk management efforts are pretty insignificant and unresponsive to our needs,'' said Christopher E. Mandel, risk manager for USAA Group in San Antonio.

Mr. Mandel said USAA's risk management department is currently shifting to an enterprise risk management approach, and he has been reviewing software platform products that would support this effort. So far, he said, he is unimpressed.

Mr. Mandel said that he is most interested in ``finding good tools that establish and help measure metrically some of our performance issues relating to traditional and enterprise risk management issues. But those are pretty limited or fairly narrow in their current design, depending on the industry,'' he said.

Westaff's Mr. Pettegrew said he would like injured workers to have online access to information about their workers compensation benefits. ``Employees don't understand it, and half the time they go to lawyers'' if they get injured on the job, Mr. Pettegrew said. ``There is no uniform way of getting that information to people.''

Mr. Pettegrew said he would like to find a workers comp Web product that would permit employees to access, using passwords, a variety of disability and medical information and to get answers to their questions.

Mr. Pettegrew said he also would like to see a Web-based system that would permit him to track and monitor workplace ergonomics concerns. ``I've looked all over the Web (for such a product), but, so far, I haven't seen what I'm looking for,'' he said.

Ms. Edwards of Lend Lease Real Estate said the Web lacks any site that compiles surveys about which benefits employers are offering to their employees.

She said that she would like to see a site that organizes its employee benefits data by the size of the employer, type of industry and geographic region. Ms. Edwards said that having access to information such as the average level of employee copayments for health care coverage and the average percentage of company matching for 401(k) plans would help her in designing Lend Lease's own benefits programs.

``That would be the biggest help to me,'' she said.

Volume: 35
Publication number: 41

© Copyright Business Insurance 2001