From Bob's Cluttered Desk

The planning and work have been intense. Multiple stages running simultaneous events. State and regional workers’ compensation updates. Excellent speakers. Even a series of video shorts discussing what industry experts have learned from COVID. The National Workers’ Compensation Defense Network (NWCDN) Annual Conference will in many ways be bigger than ever before, and it won’t have a…

If ever there was a headline that made you look at an article, the one appended to this post is probably it. This story has it all. Sex, sizzle, alleged nefariousness and a pinup girl pinned down by a tragic mishap. Oh, and we can’t forget the 285-pound corpse falling from the sky.   Ok, it…

This might come as a bit of a surprise to you, but apparently 2020 has been a somewhat stressful year. Impeachment, pandemics, riots, social unrest, election controversy and Hillary Clinton’s new podcast have all loomed large to darken the year and bring angst to the average bear. But in the midst of it all, there…

The Comp Laude® Awards are again approaching, and once again this year I have had the opportunity to volunteer in the process leading up to the event. This year I was on the Vetting Committee. The vetting group is the last stop before the finalists move on to the Judging Panel, and actual winners are selected. The Comp…

Some people really throw themselves into their work. Sometimes they do this from dedication and training; occasionally it is done instinctively and with the absence of forethought.  The latter may have been the case with one obviously dedicated Ohio sheriff’s deputy, who while trying to catch a fleeing subject, literally threw himself down a flight of…

A survey reported on by Risk & Insurance has shown that 74% of workers’ compensation professionals are “actively looking to create a more technology-centered future industry.” The other 26% are presumably still trying to get their webcam to work during Zoom calls. We would note that is a major improvement from earlier in the year, when most…

During the first day of the WCI Cybersecurity Forum yesterday, there was extensive discussion on the issue of “ransomware” and the threat it poses to just about any business today who relies on computer data. Ransomware is software that is maliciously installed on a computer or network, and in most cases locks your critical data by encrypting…

We wrote about it last week. Cybercrime and cybersecurity. Beyond the immediacy of COVID, it is the topic that will define risk management for the 2020’s, yet many in the workers’ compensation industry have failed to appreciate the risk to their own lives and business operations. We offered a Hot Seat webinar on the topic…

We received a very unique message on our home answering machine yesterday. A very polite sounding lady named Wanda W. (last name redacted) called. She was with MedRisk, a Managed Physical Medicine company. She wanted to know if we were still providing massage services and if we were also seeing workers’ compensation patients. Thank God…

Cybersecurity has been a rapidly rising topic of late, not just for the workers’ comp industry, but for the nation and every sector of our economy. Yet, it seems that for many people, cybersecurity and related technology threats are like a hot stove. We know it is hot. We’ve been told it is hot. Yet…