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Companies face a wide variety of business risks, from internal and external sources alike. Quantifying and measuring risk exposures, whether workers' compensation costs, effectiveness of security measures, or a large volume of outstanding insurance claims, is the first step in making the proper business decisions about how to mitigate, transfer, and reduce that risk.
To do so, accurate data is crucial.
However, compiling, analyzing, and managing data is not always easy, especially with companies now acting on a wider national and larger international scale. Different technology platforms and measurement standards coupled with the challenges of coordinating claims, insurance policies, and exposures enterprise-wide can create a management challenge of the first order.
Those companies who decide to utilize risk management technologies may enjoy a number of benefits. These include:
- Identifying key cost drivers, so that an organization can prioritize cost control efforts
- Measuring cost trends, so an organization can focus on high-impact areas
- Providing timely feedback to management, thereby facilitating proactive and properly targeted loss control practices throughout the organization
- Identifying internal best practices, so they can be spread throughout the organization
- Reducing premium costs as a result of submitting credible information to underwriters for quotes
- Improving vendor effectiveness through the ability to monitor vendor performance indicators and negotiate vendor performance guarantees
- Minimizing overall claim handling costs through closer monitoring of claim administration practices
- Improving productivity by reducing or eliminating paper-handling, manual production of reports or statistics, or other time-consuming activities
- Reducing litigation expenses through proactive post-loss communication, review, and monitoring
- Managing aggregates in a complex coverage structure, and improving the ability to notify excess carriers in a complex coverage structure, thus avoiding loss of coverage through failure to notify
Overall, such technologies may provide greater operational efficiencies and a real competitive advantage in the marketplace
What Will You Say When They Ask What Happened?
STARS provides a risk manager with timely, accurate information to enable implementation of effective loss control procedures to reduce the frequency and severity of incidents, and to substantially decrease an organization's insurance costs.
In considering how best to compile, analyze, and manage data in order to better understand risk exposures, executives should ask themselves the following questions:
- Can I quantify my organization's total cost of risk?
- Do I have enough detailed information to establish effective loss control measures? Can I easily calculate savings from the measures I implement?
- Do I have the data management systems I need to properly manage insurance, risk, and claims data?
- Is my interdepartmental workflow efficient?
- Can I communicate effectively throughout my organization regarding enterprise-wide risk events?
- Am I in compliance with state and federal regulations that affect my industry?
- Am I prepared to handle a mass tort action or other legal suits?
- Can I consolidate, integrate, and convert data from internal and external sources so that it provides me with a comprehensive view of risk?
- Do I have the support services I need to properly develop and maintain a risk management information system?
Who's Looking Out for You?
Marsh's Risk Technologies (MRT) Practice provides software and consulting solutions focused on business processes related to the management of insurance, risk, claims, and legal data. MRT delivers full-service business support to risk managers, legal professionals, safety personnel, human resources and employee benefits administrators, as well as businesses providing claims services to their customers.
Clients from a vast array of industries use STARS to effectively manage their total cost of risk. STARS combines an organization's risk data into a single database of claims, transactions, policies and exposures with powerful reporting capabilities to help clients clearly identify cost drivers. STARS provides a risk manager with timely, accurate information to enable implementation of effective loss control procedures to reduce the frequency and severity of incidents, and to substantially decrease an organization's insurance costs.
STARS delivers solutions that assist clients in the following areas:
- Claims Administration — Full support for clients that self-administer claims, STARS enables management of all aspects of a claim, including setting up reserves, making payments, preparing checks, case management, and reporting.
- Risk Event Management — STARS delivers workflow tools for managing and monitoring all risk-related events — such as financial, legal, operational, security, health, and safety — across an organization. STARS also provides enterprise-wide reporting.
- Risk Management — STARS facilitates the collection, consolidation, and enhancement of risk information to improve risk management analysis and decision-making, so organizations can effectively manage their total cost of risk.
- Matter Management and Legal Management — STARS provides functionality for managing any type of legal matter, from discovery to final settlement. Clients can manage all aspects of the matter, including setting budgets, making payments, managing workflow, case management and reporting.
- Mass Tort Administration — STARS delivers software and services for managing the data administration process for mass tort actions from the initial lawsuit, to the costs incurred through settlement as they are distributed to plaintiffs, to the recovery of distributed settlements from carriers.
- Data Services — Proven data conversion and consolidation services are available through STARS, including interface programming and data verification specifically for insurance, risk, legal, and claims data.
New Offering for Middle-Market Clients
A new version of STARS for small and mid-size organizations is now available. STARS Standard Edition (STARS SE) is designed to provide customers with easy to use, Web-based risk management tools for claims data collection, risk management and analysis, workflow management, and powerful reporting. Software is preconfigured and includes a comprehensive collection of report templates to get clients up and running quickly.
STARS SE provides the following benefits:
- Award-winning technology
- Coverage-specific information tracking
- Rapid deployment
- Reliable, stable IT infrastructure
For more information about Marsh’s Risk Technologies practice and its products and services, please visit www.STARSinfo.com
If you have any questions or would like additional information, please contact us.
If you are seeking information about insurance and related services, please visit marsh.com.
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