Category Archives: Health & Safety
Dog Bite Prevention Coalition: Tips for Sheltering at Home with Pets
Most Americans are under stay-a-home orders at this stage of the coronavirus pandemic, and stress is running high for myriad reasons.
The pandemic has affected pets too. “Dogs that are used to kids being at school and adults at work are now finding themselves surrounded by their families 24/7,” according to Victoria Stilwell, CEO of Positively.com and the Victoria Stilwell Academy of Dog Training and Behavior. “Most welcome the company, but some dogs are having a hard time adjusting to the constant noise, attention and lack of space,” said Stilwell.
In some cases, dogs will exhibit anxious, aggressive, or destructive behaviors.
The National Dog Bite Prevention Week Coalition offers the following tips to help you and your pets cope while sheltering at home:
- Create a den-like space or “safe zone” in your home that is a “dog only” zone. This can be a crate where the door always remains open or a quiet location your dog can go to when it needs some space.
- Small children should be supervised around any dog. To make it easier, you can use baby gates to keep dogs and kids separated if you can’t actively supervise them.
- This is the time to teach your dog some new skills. Challenge your dog to learn new cues. If you need the help of a trainer, many now offer virtual consultations.
- If you can take your dog out for a walk, make sure you keep it on leash. Do not allow your pet to socially interact with other dogs or people. While humans are observing social distancing rules, they should help their dogs do the same.
- Having a plan in place for your pets is important. Individuals who become too sick or require hospitalization will need to have someone to take care of their animals while they heal. Just like any disaster preparedness plan, have a “bug out” bag ready.
Members of the National Dog Bite Prevention Week Coalition will share information during several webinars this week focused on how COVID-19 is impacting pets and pet owners. Experts will provide safety tips for sheltering at home with dogs, how to support animal shelters and rescues, and release 2019 dog-related injury claims data.
The Next webinar will take place on Friday, April 17 at 1:00 PM CST/2:00 PM EST
Zoom webinar for the general public (Registration Required):
https://zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_9cO7OQTVQXSdZb2UXs9ufQ
In a previously recorded webinar, Janet Ruiz, Strategic Communications Director, Triple-I, explained that when it comes to dog bite claims, it’s important to note that these are just incidents that were reported to insurance companies and that the actual number of dog bites is likely to be much higher. In 2019 homeowners insurers paid about $796.8 million as a result of 17,802 dog bite claims.
National Dog Bite Prevention Week (NDBPW) is April 12-18, 2020. Members of the National Dog Bite Prevention Coalition include the American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA), State Farm®, Insurance Information Institute (Triple-I), American Humane, and the Victoria Stilwell Academy for Dog Training and Behavior. The coalition joins forces each year to draw attention to how people can reduce the number of dog bites.
Coronavirus wrap-upLife/Health(4/8/2020)
A.M. Best Holds Stable Outlook on U.S. Health Industry Amid COVID-19 Pandemic Crisis
Insurance rating agency A.M. Best said it is maintaining its stable market segment outlook on the U.S. health insurance industry, despite the impact of the COVID-19 virus outbreak. It cited:
- A trend of strong earnings;
- Strengthened risk-adjusted capitalization;
- Lower-than-estimated utilization and medical cost trends; and
- The cancellation or postponement of visits for routine care and elective procedures.
U.S. life insurers’ growing commercial mortgage portfolios may face virus pressure
U.S. life insurers continued in 2019 to increase their holdings of commercial mortgage loans, an asset class that industry participants say faces unique challenges during the coronavirus pandemic, S&P Global reports. The long-term nature of commercial mortgages makes them a good asset match for the long-duration liabilities life insurers carry. However, commercial mortgage loans could be under stress as the pandemic-sparked economic slowdown continues.
Calls for Medicaid expansion renewed as COVID-19 outbreak strains health care system
More than 50 Texas health policy and industry groups are urging Gov. Greg Abbott to expand the state’s Medicaid program to cover more than 1 million people as a way to slow the spread of the coronavirus and the illness it causes, COVID-19.
Coronavirus Reset: How to Get Health Insurance Now
Millions of people have lost jobs — and often the health coverage that came with those jobs. More still have had their work hours reduced or have received drastic pay cuts, so monthly premiums that may have been manageable before are now out of reach.
Estimated Cost of Treating the Uninsured Hospitalized with COVID-19
A great deal of uncertainty surrounds how the COVID-19 epidemic will evolve, including how many people will become infected and how many will become severely ill and require hospitalization. The Kaiser Family Foundation provides a range of cost estimates for the Trump administration’s proposal to reimburse hospitals for COVID-19 treatments for uninsured patients, based on results from recent studies and models.
Health Insurers Waive COVID-19 Cost Sharing
UnitedHealthcare (UHC) this week became the latest major insurer to waive members’ cost sharing for COVID-19 treatments. The health insurer said it would waive the associated costs for members in its fully insured commercial, Medicare Advantage, and Medicaid plans.
UHC added that it’s working with interested self-funded employer plans to offer the same waivers.
Anthem announced similar steps, saying it would cover the cost-sharing for COVID-19 treatment through May 31 for its Medicare, Medicaid, individual market and fully insured employer plans. The insurer also said it was “strongly encouraging” its self-funded employers to adopt the waivers.
Anthem has also taken other steps similar to its peers in the industry, such as waiving the cost-sharing for testing and tele-health, and easing prescription limits.
Aetna, Cigna and Humana all previously announced they would waive members’ cost-sharing for COVID-19 treatment. These insurers also waived copayments and other cost-sharing for testing and telehealth visits.
Regional health plans are taking similar steps. Florida Blue announced Tuesday it would waive cost-sharing for treatment, as did Harvard Pilgrim Health Plan.
Triple-I launches coronavirus issues and impacts webpage
The spread of the coronavirus and COVID-19 – and how governments, businesses, and individuals are dealing with it – raises many issues relevant to property/casualty insurers and their customers.
Triple-I has launched a webpage to help readers find what they need from the information we gather and curate. The issues we track range from operational challenges posed by the virus to likely impacts on claims and losses to the possible introduction of legislative and regulatory solutions that might affect insurance underwriting and pricing.
We discuss these multi-faceted issues and impacts from our position as a trusted source of unique, data-driven insights on insurance. The page will have links to Triple-I reports and presentations on the topic, and links to many of our blog posts grouped by the following categories:
- Property/casualty insurance impact
- Non-P/C insurance impact
- Political/regulatory issues
- Economic impact
- Triple-I activities
- Data explanations and visualizations
To visit our coronavirus issues and impacts page click here. For all posts related to COVID-19 click here.
Will Workers Comp Claims for COVID-19 Be Paid?
While health workers and first responders might be more likely to be exposed, whether COVID-19 is compensable under workers comp is uncertain.
Whether workers compensation claims related to COVID-19 will be paid is a question to be answered case by case and state by state.
The world has seen numerous epidemics whose impact on public health is well documented, so you might expect to find guidance on compensability from these experiences. But according to the National Council on Compensation Insurance (NCCI), “You would be hard pressed to find meaningful information on how or even if the workers compensation system was affected” by the SARS, H1N1, Ebola, and Zika outbreaks.
Workers comp insurance typically covers employers for employee claims regarding “bodily injury by accident or bodily injury by disease.” Many state statutes, however, exclude “ordinary disease of life.”
While some occupations – for example, health care workers and first responders – might be said to have a higher probability than others for exposure to COVID-19, whether the disease is compensable under workers comp is uncertain.
“’Would time away from work during recovery be considered ‘temporary disability’,”’ NCCI asks, “or is it just normal ‘sick time’?”
Guaranteed benefits for some
Workers’ comp insurers in at least two states have said they will guarantee benefits for health workers and first responders.
Kentucky Employers Mutual Insurance Co. said it will pay wage-replacement benefits for any first responder or employee in the medical field who is quarantined because of direct exposure to a person diagnosed with COVID-19. The announcement follows a decision by the Washington State Department of Labor and Industries to pay wage-loss and medical treatment expenses for any health care worker or first responder who is quarantined because of coronavirus exposure. Washington operates a monopoly workers comp system, so that policy affects every employee covered by the state system.
It remains to be seen if other states will take the same measures relative to workers comp. For general health insurance, however, NCCI says at least 10 states have issued mandates to cover COVID-19. The mandates vary, but they include coverage for testing and visits to emergency rooms or urgent care facilities either in-network or out-of-network without deductibles or copays.
If expanded to more states, NCCI says, these mandates could limit workers comp claims in cases where only testing or quarantine are necessary.
Triple-I Webinar Covers COVID-19’s Economic and Health Implications
The Insurance Information Institute invited its members to a webinar titled “Covid-19’s Impact on Health, the Economy and Growth” on March 5 at 11:00 a.m. EST presented by Triple-I Vice President and Senior Economist Michel Léonard, PhD, CBE.
Dr. Lèonard will discuss the following key points:
• Economic impact likely to continue into Q3/Q4 2020 and 2021
• Could reduce global growth by as much as 1 percent and delay recovery by up to 12 months
• Fiscal and monetary policy, rates cuts, unlikely to be effective
• Insurance industry to see higher claims, reduced premium growth
He will also preview the Global Macro and Industry Outlook report before it is made available to the public.
To find out more about the benefits of Triple-I membership click here.
Infectious Disease: A Good Reason to Buy Medical Travel Insurance – But Check the Terms
Faced with Covid-19 coronavirus, people – as they tend to during infectious outbreaks – have become concerned about whether and to what extent their insurance will cover costs associated with the event. In the case of travel insurance, there’s good, bad, and ambiguous news.
If you contract coronavirus before you travel or while you’re traveling and have a standard policy that includes coverage for medical treatment and medical evacuation, your care probably will be covered. The “probably” is due to the fact that many insurers set a deadline – a date before which you might be covered but after which you won’t be. That’s because Covid-19 is now a “foreseen circumstance” — people now know about it.
Trip cancellation can be more complicated. Many policies exclude losses caused by disease outbreaks. Cancelling a trip simply because you don’t want to risk infection likely won’t be covered by a standard policy.
What if you get sick and need to cancel your trip? You might be covered, depending on the insurer and a long list of conditions. For example, an illness that would be covered often requires a medical professional to confirm that the policyholder was, in fact, too sick to travel.
A cancel for any reason (CFAR) policy can help you recoup part of your expense, but they’re pricey: usually around 10 percent of the cost of your trip, compared with four to six percent for a standard policy.
Do these exclusions and uncertainties mean medical travel insurance is a waste of money?
Not at all.
As I’ve written before, there are many ways one can be injured, fall ill, or die abroad – and your regular medical coverage may not work the same way abroad as it does at home. Since we’re talking about infectious diseases, take a look at the recent snippet below from the CDC website for a glimpse at some areas of concern. The list is always changing.
With travel policies – as with all other forms of insurance – it’s important to understand what’s covered and what isn’t and talk with your agent to be sure you’re getting the coverage you need. You also should thoroughly research your destinations and planned activities for possible exclusions.
Life & Death: Cyberattacks Interrupt More Than Business
Cyberattacks on hospitals can lead to increased death rates among heart patients, recent research suggests. This research emerges as attacks on health facilities are reported to have increased 60 percent in 2019.
Researchers at Vanderbilt University‘s Owen Graduate School of Management drilled down into Department of Health and Human Services records on data breaches from more than 3,000 Medicare-certified hospitals. They found that, for facilities that experienced a breach, the time for suspected heart attack patients to receive an electrocardiogram (ECG) increased by more than two minutes.
When seconds count
The study focused on the impact of remediation efforts on health care outcomes following a data breach. It found that common remediation approaches, such as additional verification layers during system sign-on, can “delay the access to patient data and may lead to inefficiencies or delays in care.”
“Especially in the case of a patient with chest pain,” the report says, “any delay in registering the patient and accessing the patient’s record will lead to delay in ordering and executing an ECG.”
The researchers found that “a data breach was associated with a 2.7-minute increase in time to ECG three years after the breach.”
A bit over two minutes may not seem like much – but during a coronary or a stroke it can be the difference between life and death.
Increasingly targeted
Vanderbilt’s research was based on data collected before ransomware attacks against health care facilities became common. The authors caution that such attacks – in which systems or data are held hostage until a ransom can be paid – “are considered more disruptive to hospital operations than the breaches considered in this study.”
The medical sector is the seventh-most targeted industry, according to a report by internet security firm Malwarebytes, based on data gathered between October 2018 and September 2019. But Malwarebytes warns that attacks on this sector are on the rise.
“Threat detections have increased for this vertical,” the report says, “from about 14,000 healthcare-facing endpoint detections in Q2 2019 to more than 20,000 in Q3, a growth rate of 45 percent.”
Comparing all of 2018 against the first three quarters of 2019, Malwarebytes said it has observed a 60 percent increase in such attempted intrusions.
“If the trend continues,” Malwarebytes reports, “we expect to see even higher gains in a full year-over-year analysis.”
Despite Safer Skies, Aviation Claims Rise: What’s Up With That?
Flying has never been safer.
You’re more likely to die from being attacked by a dog than in an airline accident (see chart).
And yet, according to a recent Allianz Global Corporate & Specialty (AGCS) report, the aviation sector’s insurance claims continue to grow in number and size.
The report – Aviation Risk 2020 – says 2017 was the first in at least 60 years of aviation in which there were no fatalities on a commercial airline. The year 2018, in which 15 fatal accidents occurred, ranks as the third safest year ever.
Of more than 29,000 recorded deaths between 1959 and 2017, the report says, fatalities between 2008 and 2017 accounted for less than 8 percent – despite the vast increase in the number of people and planes in the air since 1959.
So, what gives?
Safety is expensive
Some of the reasons for the increased claims are good ones: Safer aircraft cost more to repair and replace when there are problems.
The report analyzed 50,000 aviation claims from 2013 to 2018, worth $16.3 billion, and found “collision/crash incidents” accounted for 57 percent, or $9.3 billion. Now, this may sound bad, but the category includes things like hard landings, bird strikes, and “runway incidents.”
The AGCS analysis showed 470 runway incidents during the five-year period accounted for $883 million of damages.
Engine costs more than the plane
Today’s aircraft contain far more sophisticated electronics and materials than those flying in the 1960s. When they bump into each other or come down too hard, they cost more to repair.
“We recently handled a claim where a rental engine was required while the aircraft’s engine was repaired,” said Dave Watkins, regional head of general aviation, North America, at AGCS. “The value of the rental engine was more than the entire aircraft.”
When entire fleets have to be grounded – the report cites the 2013 grounding of the Boeing Dreamliner for lithium-ion battery problems and the more recent fatal crashes involving the Boeing 737 Max – costs can really soar. Boeing reportedly has set aside about $5 billion to cover costs related to the global grounding of the 737 Max.
Even after a fix is found, the task of retrofitting a fleet takes considerable time – and, in the aviation industry, time truly is money.
Liability awards take off
Compounding the claims associated with the costs of safer flight, the report says, liability awards have risen dramatically.
“With fewer major airline losses,” Watkins said, “attorneys are fighting over a much smaller pool and are putting more resources into fewer claims, pushing more aggressively for higher awards.”
Today’s aircraft carry hundreds of passengers at a time. With liability awards per passenger in the millions, a major aviation loss could easily result in a liability loss of $1 billion or more.