Help Control Workers' Compensation Costs - The Edge from the National Association of Landscape Professionals

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Help Control Workers' Compensation Costs

Author, Drew Garcia, with Rancho Mesa Insurance Services, is the program director for NALP’s Workers’ Compensation Program which provides discounts to NALP members. 

As the NALP Workers Compensation Program Manager we understand the need for “Best Practices” to be utilized by landscape contractors to prevent workers’ compensation claims from occurring. However, at some point, a claim will occur and at that moment there are steps to be taken that both control the costs of the claim and look for preventive measures to reduce or eliminate a similar claim from reoccurring.

The first step in this process is to complete a thorough Accident Investigation Report.  This report should be done at the time of the accident by the supervisor overseeing the injured employee and contain the following information.

  1. Employee name, date and time of the accident, and location.
  2. A description of how the injury occurred. What job duties was the employee performing when they were injured?
  3. What part(s) of the employee’s body were reported as injured?
  4. Were witnesses present when the accident occurred? If so be sure to take formal written statements. (A separate witness statement form should completed and signed by the witness)
  5. Take pictures of the injury and accident area.
  6. What recommendations or changes could be made to eliminate or reduce the opportunity for the same claim reoccurring?

The goals of this process are;

  1. To have a timely and accurate record of the accident or incident that allows you to report the claim quickly to your insurance carrier.
  1. To help you to reduce the chance of fraudulent claims through documentation, pictures and witness statements.
  1. To look to the root cause of the accident or near miss and then implement the needed recommendations or changes to reduce or eliminate the future likelihood of these claims.

As part of our NALP Workers Compensation program, Rancho Mesa has developed a proprietary Accident Investigation Report to assist NALP Members with this vital documentation of their accidents or near misses.  To view our report you can access it here (Supervisor’s Report of Employee Accident). If you have any questions please contact drew@ranchomesa.com.