Can Your Insurance-Workers Compensation Carrier Manage Your OSHA Compliance?

I routinely hear companies tell us that their insurance company, or Workers Compensation carrier, is managing all of their OSHA compliance requirements.

This is a very common and dangerous misconception among small manufacturers and other industrial businesses with many health and safety hazards which put their employees in harms way.

I actually have extensive past experience as the owner of an energy contracting business trying to utilize our workers compensation carrier as our primary safety resources. It was a very frustrating experience which finally lead me to understand that this “strategy” is doomed to failure.

The fact is that it is impossible for any workers compensation carrier to manage OSHA compliance for any given policy holder.

Here’s why:

No Mandate For Compliance: Your insurance company and workers compensation carrier has no legal or other mandate for managing policy holder’s OSHA compliance, period.
1 Inspection per Year: They’re only obligated to inspect your company one time per year.
Inspection recommendations are often “Loss Control” Related, NOT OSHA Compliance Related: Their inspection and report focuses on controlling their own potential losses, not on your company’s OSHA compliance. The report will likely includes some health and safety related findings, but it’s not advisable to assume that the inspection has identified all, or even most of these hazards.
LacksTime & Resources to Manage Your OSHA Compliance: Your workers compensation “loss control” agent typically has a book of thousands of other clients, and a geographic territory of hundreds or even thousands of square miles, so they literally don’t have the time nor resources to focus on your company. These bandwidth challenges make it impossible to manage any policy holders OSHA compliance.
Only Offer Generic On-Line Resources: Your carrier only offers generic health and safety resources that don’t necessarily have anything to do with the specific risks and hazards at your company. These generic resources include safety manual and procedure templates, training videos and other generic resources. It is the up to the policy holder to figure out which resources apply to their operations, and then customize them to meet their own operational risks.
Company Representative Must Utilize & Manage Resources: Someone at your company must then 1) determine which of these generic resources apply to their operations and 2) update and customize them to address the company’s specific health and safety hazards and then try to make use of them. The fact is that very few companies are able to do successfully do this.

Your insurance company and workers compensation cannot manage your OSHA health and safety compliance requirements and companies who assume this put themselves at serious risk for employee injuries and accidents, and huge regulatory fines and penalties.

Click here to learn more about OSHA compliance requirements and how to build and manage a workplace safety training plan

and then ask your loss control agent if they can do all of this on your behalf…..

Call 512-457-0374 Or Click Here To Schedule Your Free Consultation Today

By Russell Carr|2022-03-21T12:51:14-05:00August 11th, 2016|OSHA Texas Laws & Regulations|Comments Off

About the Author: Russell Carr

How A Sales Guy Transformed Into An Environmental, Health & Safety Expert & Advocate For Small Businesses I've spent my entire 30+ year career working within the manufacturing and “industrial services” sectors. The first 15 years of my career focused on sales of hazardous materials related products and services to the manufacturing sector, then for the last 16+ years transitioned into entrepreneurship, founding 3 small industrial services related contracting businesses. As you’ll see below, running these companies eventually lead me to found yet a 4th business, but more on that in a minute…. Here’s a brief description of the first 3 companies: Berg Environmental Services, Inc.: hazardous waste disposal & transportation services, founded in August of 2003 3rd party wind energy operations & maintenance services provider to utility scale wind farms throughout the US, founded in September 2007 3rd party oil & gas exploration & production services provider, founded in August of 2011 Each of these companies operated in extremely dangerous working conditions and exposed my employees to a wide range of serious health & safety hazards on a daily basis. To complicate matters, 2 of the companies also exposed the environment to significant potential harm. In other words, I learned very early the critical importance of managing environmental, health and safety issues so as to ensure the safety of our employees and the environment, as well as minimizing related risks. But I also learned how incredibly difficult and challenging this endeavor can be due to the wide range of complicated and continually changing environmental, health and safety rules and regulations that impacted the companies. To summarize the challenges: First I had to determine which regulations applied to each company, then I had to build compliance programs to meet those regulations, and finally I had to ensure that the programs were being managed and followed by our staff on a daily basis. All while trying to run and grow 3 profitable businesses…. It was overwhelming and I always struggled to keep up. To make matters worse, throughout this time I also witnessed the devastating price that companies, management and ownership can pay for failing to manage EHS compliance. This included seeing one of my hazardous waste management clients get sent to jail over environmental issues, another client’s management team threatened with jail time, a direct competitor get fined $378,000 by OSHA fine after an employee was nearly killed, and many others face major fines and penalties. Full disclosure, one of my companies got fined by OSHA at one point, & another was cited by TCEQ, so I know how it feels. In summary, I learned first hand how incredibly difficult it is for small companies to manage EHS compliance due to a common lack of the critical expertise, time and resources that are needed to keep up, and how this situation then ends up exposing them to these potentially catastrophic risks that can literally destroy lives and businesses. This later inspired me to found my 4th company, Berg Compliance Solutions in 2012, which is dedicated to helping other small businesses, and business owners, to manage EHS compliance and risk. Education BA, Philosophy, University of Colorado, Boulder, December, 1990. Summary of Professional Experience & Qualifications: 30+ years serving the manufacturing & industrial services sectors 30+ years of sales and marketing experience 16+ years as small business owner & entrepreneur: Founded and operated 4 small businesses since 2003. Environmental, Health & Safety Compliance & Program Related: 19 plus years of hazardous waste management including EPA, TCEQ & RCRA regulations 8 years of DOT/FMCSA compliance experience, including hazardous materials transportation 8 years of combined experience implementing and managing OSHA health and safety compliance programs for 2 high risk energy services businesses Successfully implemented and gained ISO 9001 Quality Management Certification and OHSAS 18001 (Occupational Health & Safety Advisory Service) Certification for wind energy maintenance business. Regulatory Enforcement Related Experience: Served as expert witness in criminal environmental compliance enforcement cases Superfund-CERCLA OSHA enforcement inspections, investigations and resolution in following industries: industrial services, manufacturing & construction. TCEQ enforcement inspections, investigations and resolution in manufacturing.

Can Your Insurance-Workers Compensation Carrier Manage Your OSHA Compliance?