The landscape of workers’ compensation has changed since March, when COVID-19 became a pandemic in the U.S. COVID-19 impacts every jobsite and potentially every worker in the U.S., and
SUNZ has been shifting its underwriting and risk assessment processes to accommodate these changes to continue to be a positive force for our clients.
COVID-19 is a novel virus that no underwriting team has never seen, and as a result, we’ve created new methods of review, and we are treating it accordingly. Our primary goal in the COVID-19 underwriting process and risk management assessment is to protect our clients, their employees, and the insurance carrier. We are consistently thinking, “How do we protect jobsite workers while they are put in risky situations?”
We aim to understand an individual’s or company’s potential level of exposure to COVID-19 beyond that of the general population. To do this, SUNZ has been concentrating on industries that have a greater potential to be exposed to the virus and severe symptoms:
- Home Health
- Nursing Homes
- Travel Nurses
- Hospitals
- Urgent Care
- Death Care
- Ambulance – Transport
- Clinics and Medical Offices
- Janitorial (COVID Clean-up)
- Waste Hauling (Medical Waste)
Staff in these industries are potentially going into an infected area and need a higher level of care and standard. What we’ve done for these higher-risk industries is to assess the exposures and controls to ensure companies and their employees are being safe to understand their level of exposure above and beyond the general population.
The underwriting process vets and eliminates some of the most severe exposures. This is where loss control and underwriting work hand in hand. Loss control (an element of risk management – which is preventing injuries or illness among employees) can assess if employers are properly mitigating the risk.
With the COVID-19 outbreak, our risk management team is considering the impact of all businesses across a variety of industries, forcing the rethinking of daily operations to ensure the safety of both employees and the general public. As one misstep can lead to the quick spread of COVID-19, jeopardizing the well-being of workers, we aim to secure knowledge of the operations, confirming mitigation controls are in place to prevent the spread of COVID-19 and safeguard their staff.
