Theory of Cost Analysis

Smart-Comp's vision is to create a partnership of brokers, carriers and employers where understanding and managing comp costs are a 'value added' benefit to all. We firmly believe that educating clients to the true cost of their comp losses sets insurance professionals apart from competitors and results in greater loyalty, client growth and increased revenues. The ways Smart-Comp builds comp cost awareness are:

Verifying Mods & Forecasting Next Year's Premiums

This is the one part of Smart-Comp's vision which the comp industry has acknowledged with competitive mod calculation software packages. But this seems as far as the other offerings have been prepared to go.

Premium Analysis

A full fifty-percent of what can be done to encourage employers to manage costs is to show them the premium impact of their comp losses and trends. Because all client losses were free before they acquired an experience mod, most clients have no concept of the relationship between their losses and future premiums.

Bottom-Line Cost Awareness

Analysis with the greatest motivation value to business owners and controllers reveals the 'true' cost of comp losses including Premiums and Hidden or Incidental costs. Hidden costs include time lost by coworkers, efficiency suffers, supervisors invest time with training of replacements, equipment is damaged, work is spoiled, or any one of a hundred more items may result.

Advanced What-If Models

A further enhancement to Smart-Comp's vision includes state of the art "What-If" analysis. This feature shows clients the premium and productivity savings available to them through implementing Early Return to Work Programs, Safety and Incentive Plans, Medical and Legal Cost Containment Programs and much more. (What-If models even link this data to a built-in Graphics module.) The opportunity to simulate alternative scenarios to determine the value of loss control measures (or the amount of damage for their lack), is of universal value to all employers, and can even save a significant amount of money for an employer whose loss amount is lower than the statistical average (a "credit mod"). Our What-If module identifies specific areas and costs of claims and the affect of initiating control in those areas.

Marketing Tool

Smart-Comp software is perhaps known best as a marketing tool. It's not uncommon for customers to acquire new business (sometimes amounting to hundreds of thousands of dollars) with their first use of our software. The advantage that Smart-Comp users have over competitors (who fail to show clients a financial approach to managing comp costs) is great. Our philosophy is "Why should brokers have to lower their package price to make inroads into new accounts, when they can offer much greater overall savings with comp-related services. Our comp service software pays for itself many times over each year, and part of that payback is in new accounts.

What's Next?

Today's workers' comp industry is stuck with a system that is entrenched in outdated attitudes in an economic and technological environment, which no longer supports those attitudes. Now is the time for Smart-Comp's most recent development. Our latest product, called 'Work Smart', was developed to permit insurance professionals to third party license our software to clients. This software lets clients enter loss tracking and OSHA Log data and use the Internet to instantly forward loss information to brokers and carriers for advanced 'real-time' analysis. This allows many more clients, for the first time, to exercise some control over their own workers' comp destiny." While insurance professionals will still maintain a more advanced system, their clients can assist them in gathering detailed loss data as they start to manage their own workers' comp destiny. Smart-Comp has adhered to its vision of comp service for over a decade. It has nurtured it and grown it. We believe our vision holds the key to the future of workers' comp and hope we will be instrumental in achieving it.