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PODCAST OPENER
Welcome to the Inside Insight podcast presented by CR Solutions. At Consolidated Risk Solutions, we are taking our expert knowledge of the insurance world and using it to innovate the industry using technology, groundbreaking thinking and a personal touch. Join us as we talk to masterminds both inside and outside of CR Solutions about how the world of insurance is changing, and how we can be sure to grow along with it. If you have to manage insurance in your work, then you can benefit from the interviews, conversations and insights we’ll be exploring to elevate your business’s success.
INTRO (00:56 – 03:56)
Trevor Casey: We are back with another episode of the Inside Insight podcast. This one is with our friend Rocio Luna. She is in California. As some say, California. Hello, Beau.
Beau Lunceford: Hey Trevor.
Trevor Casey: We’re back again.
Beau Lunceford: We are here and we have another episode of the Inside Insight Podcast. And like Trevor already mentioned, we have a very cool guest to introduce to you today, Rocio Luna, who works over at Insurax, and she actually has her hands in a couple of different places. But the really, the bread and butter of what she emphasizes on is EMR’s and getting those high EMR’s down to something that make it easier for her clients to bid jobs successfully to keep those premiums down. And we’ve said several times that EMR is a huge topic that people are talking about. Everyone understands how important this is and why it’s so valuable to have a low one.
Trevor Casey: Yeah, absolutely. And one of the things that I think is really interesting is Rocio takes a different approach from all the other people that we’ve been speaking with, with EMR, because a lot of people have been coming on this and they talk of what it is or how it’s important. But one of the things that Rocio actually specializes in is actually taking a high EMR and bringing it down to a level that makes it more manageable for the company, but allows them to get lower insurance premiums, bid bigger jobs, jobs, and just creates a more successful and competitive environment for the people that she’s working with.
Beau Lunceford: Absolutely. And we don’t want to give too much away because Rocio explains it so well herself. But let me tell you a little bit about Rocio. Rocio Luna is a seasoned commercial insurance producer with a specialized focus on the construction and staffing industries. At Insurax, Rocio leverages nine years of experience in managing workers compensation claims, particularly within the stringent regulatory landscapes of California, Arizona, Texas, Washington, Nevada and New York. Oh, we know how difficult New York can be. She is well versed in dealing with high experience modification rates, or EMR’s, helping businesses struggling with frequent workers compensation claims, general liability, auto and employment practice issues. Rocio’s approach is deeply rooted in risk management. She provides tailored risk management programs aimed at reducing premiums for businesses with 25 or more employees, primarily targeting contractors and staffing agencies. Her expertise in cumulative trauma claims and state specific workers compensation law has led to a significant cost savings for her clients. You’re going to hear it in just a second, Rocio is very good at what she does. She’s clearly very gifted. She’s helped all these different companies bring these EMR’s down to something that’s more manageable. And again, I don’t want to give too much away because Rocio just does a great job of explaining it herself. So, Trevor, without any further ado, let’s jump into this conversation with Rocio Luna.
Trevor Casey: Let’s go.
Interview (03:58 – 23:37)
Trevor Casey: All right, everybody, welcome back to another episode of the Inside Insight podcast. We are here today with Rocio Luna. How are you?
Rocio Luna: I’m doing great, Trevor. Thank you for having me.
Beau Lunceford: We are so thrilled about this conversation. One of the things that we were talking about before we started recording was how EMR is such a hot topic right now. People are just really hungry for this information and the ways that EMR affects their business, the way that they can translate their EMR to something a little bit more, I don’t know, appetizing for the way that they bid jobs and things like that. So your specialty really exists in EMR. But before we dive into that, Rocio, tell us a little bit about you, about who you are, where you’re working, your specialty? Give us the highlights, baby.
Rocio Luna: So my name is Rocio Luna, and I am a commercial insurance broker, and I specialize in lowering down EMR’s to rock bottom. I’m located in Southern California, and I work for Insurax, which is an independent brokerage. And I’m also associated with another construction Italian acquisition company named “Complex Industries”, which is basically Italian acquisition firm that connects contractors with those specific employees in the oil and the more complex environmental construction side. So my whole specialty, I started off, I was a claims manager for about six years. That’s why I rave a lot about EMR’s and I know a lot about EMR’s because I literally all I did was analyze X-mod worksheets and manage workers compensation claims, which has been my biggest gift and my biggest strategy, and how I’m able to help out my clients and my prospects with their EMR’s. And just as you guys had mentioned, EMR’s are such a hot topic because EMR is what drives your insurance premium. So at renewal, every year, your EMR is going to be changed and it’s going to be based on the amount of claims you’ve had and the payroll. So it’s very important as a contractor to always control that because that determines your premium and it also determines if you could qualify to bid a job or not. And that’s why it’s so important.
Trevor Casey: So I think it’s interesting that you highlighted the payroll side of it. I think a lot of people, contractors especially, do not think about payroll and how interwind with EMR that is. They just think, “Oh, I had claims, I didn’t have claims.” Let’s talk a little bit more about how important that payroll is in accurate payroll reporting, because I know you fluffed the numbers or you try to underreport the numbers to make up for something else somewhere down the line, it’s really going to affect your EMR in the future.
Rocio Luna: That’s a great, great point, Trevor. So payroll is essential to the EMR rating because pretty much it’s going to determine how much of a primary threshold or how big you’re able to have the claims. So if you’re a smaller contractor, you have less than 500k in premium, the amount of claims you’ve had in the primary threshold, it’s going to be less. So your primary threshold is probably going to be around 3000 to 5000 max. Now, if you have a payroll over 5 million, now your primary threshold and that’s also depends on the class codes too. So let me make that point. So it depends on the risk that you have. So obviously, if you’re a roofer, your risk is a lot higher than if you are doing the concrete layout sidewalk. And that’s going to be way less than being a roofer. But on that point, if you have 5 million payroll, your primary threshold is going to range anywhere from 27k all the way to 32,000k, which means that you’re able to leverage and eat potentially bigger claims. So if you’re a smaller contractor and you have five large claims estimating at 32,000 each claim, then your EMR is going to be that 400% range versus if you are a 5 million contractor and you have three or five claims, then your EMR is going to be about 102, 101. And that’s still a pretty big impact because that guy’s paying a lot of premium for that. So ultimately you always want to control your EMR because that’s going to be the ultimate factor on the premium that you’re paying.
Beau Lunceford: So most of the clients that you have that are coming to you to try and get this EMR lowered, what kind of numbers are they usually coming in with before they realize, I’ve got to do something to get some help?
Rocio Luna: I think honestly when they come over to me, they’re filling pain points already in the sense that they are probably paying about 20% more than they were. But I have dealt with EMR’s as high as 550% and we’ve been able to lower that down all the way to 110. Of course, it’s a process and it depends on the severity how many claims you have. But typically my contractors, their EMRs are below 150 and they’re trying to get below that range of 80. They want to be between 80% – 90%. It also depends because sometimes some contractors grow really quick. You have the startups that they’ve been in business meeting for five years and they were able to expand their company from 200,000 all the way to 3 million payroll. Now their gross revenues are 10 million. But during that growth spurt, they didn’t realize that they needed to have a risk management program in place and have all these policies and procedures to help them out in case if there’s an accident.
Trevor Casey: So talking about that process, and you briefly mentioned they’re having a risk management team or procedures in place, but what kind of procedures are people they’re coming to you with these extremely high EMR screaming for help saying like, what do I need to do? Can you kind of walk us through just an overview of what those steps would be that somebody would need to kind of start assessing?
Rocio Luna: So typically what happens with these higher EMR’s is that the person that’s in charge of the insurance or the human resources, they wear too many hats. They are bidding out work, doing the operations, and then they have this insurance segment that they need to handle, and they don’t really know much of it because their background is not in the insurance. So when I start to dissect this, it turns out that they really just need an SOP in place. And what’s an SOP is a standard operating procedure. They literally just need a one page just stating, if someone gets hurt, this is who your insurance company is. This is the clinic you go to. This is immobile medical service you use. So what I do is I usually introduce them to a mobile medical service that will go out to their job site and will treat first aid claims. So this is only for first aid. So if one of the guys has a laceration, an eye injury, something that’s minor and can be kept under first aid, then we’ll introduce this. Now for the ones that if someone were to get hurt, a slip and fall, we send them to the clinic, and it’s about taking action immediately. Oftentimes what happens is that employees won’t submit or they won’t report the injury right away just because they’re still trying to work it out, or if they’re saying, I’m okay Bob, I’m just going to sleep it off, put some ice. But then two days later, they come back, they’re like, “Oh, you know what, that back pain, it got worse. Like, I can’t even bend over to tie my shoe.” Now we have an injury and we need to check it out and see it. But it’s all about acting with action inappropriately. So it’s always about reporting it within the segment of time. And that’s why I really try to make my clients aware that we have to make this one pager fully aware to the employee’s eyes in case someone were to get hurt. And if there’s no supervisor, they need to know what steps to take.
Beau Lunceford: And I’m sure you’re getting a lot of pushback whenever you pitch that really basic idea of you have to act right now, we have to go to the clinic right this second because we want to make sure that we get you checked out. We want to make sure that you’re not really hurt. Whereas people probably are more likely saying like, “No, let’s just push through. Let’s just keep working.” I bet that’s a hard pill to digest, even though it sounds so simple in terms of advice.
Rocio Luna: And you do get pushback, but are you also at the moment, when an accident happens, I will always get the call, like, “Oh my God, this happened. What do I do?” So I do appreciate that sense because now they actually have someone, a call if something happens, what is it that I do? I think I get more of the pushback in sitting down and actually writing it down with them. So actually getting the person in charge or who the person would be to roll this out at the company that might be a little bit of a pushback. Like I said, just because they’re wearing multiple hats and they won’t make it an urgency until it’s really urgent. Thousands of dollars are being paid out in the insurance or like, “Oh no, we need to take action because I can’t afford this extra paying $10,000 more every month”.
Beau Lunceford: More of a reactive response as compared to sitting down and being proactive. And golly, if that doesn’t make all the difference in the world, I don’t know what does.
Trevor Casey: Additionally, you’re implementing someone pagers and strategies of what to do when something happens, a claim arises. We’re hoping for quick responses, good note taking, making sure that all of that is taken care of. Are there additional steps that you guys actually, that you implement also that really helps be kind of speed up the process of bringing those EMR’s down? Or is this more of a one, three, five year plan of saying, “All right, we’re going to implement this strategy. We’re going to take the time and we’re going to really focus on how we’re going to report each claim that comes through.”
Rocio Luna: That’s a great point because every company is different, but it’s definitely the first thing that we attack. Like, what are we doing with when these accidents occur? The second one is developing a return to work program. So we have an insured employee, now what steps are we going to do to bring them back to work? Because in construction, oftentimes they’re limited to a certain restriction on lifting, bending, but they could still do light work at the job site or at the office. And that’s another main point that I wanna bring awareness to employers, is that anytime you have an employee out, your costs are going to go up on the indemnity side, because now you have to pay wages. Or you could also provide a job or an assignment while they’re on modified duty in the office, you continue to pay them. They still come up to work. And a lot of the times it also creates some type of morale where it shows like maybe Bob doesn’t know how to, is that really tech savvy, but we could have him organizing, doing things that’s not going to really affect his physical ability. Or you could also sit down and maybe review some OSHA training or whatever it is that you really help them out, don’t assign them something boring where they’re going to hate their job. Because I do always make that very clear because especially when you have a guy who’s in the field, they like to be active. They don’t want to be sitting down, so they want to make sure that their time is being useful.
Trevor Casey: And that’s a really great point. That’s not something that I really even thought about is the return to work and how them being out affects the indemnity. So just getting them back in the office or in some kind of capacity actually working will help reduce the cost of the claims. Litigation and all of the other things arise with that. So that’s a really interesting point.
Rocio Luna: And then the third point would be the claims management aspect. So let’s say the EMR, now we have some open claims. Now we have to look at it. Is this litigated or is this claim medical only that we just have to make sure that the costs are reduced and that the employee comes back to work? So there’s two different situations that I analyzed, and that would be on the claims management aspect, which is working with the insurance carrier and the adjuster and making sure that we close this claim out and get it to the leanest amount paid out. Because ultimately, remember that we’re trying to control the EMR here. So you want the least minimal cost per claim.
Beau Lunceford: When you talk about the return to work ideas of how do you get somebody back in the office, how do you get somebody back on the payroll, getting them working again? You mentioned that it was really good for morale. I say all the time that I’m kind of the culture side of the brain and Trevor’s kind of the insurance side of the brain. So immediately my little alarms went off, and I was like, “Oh wow, how great is that to extend that, I don’t wanna say courtesy, but you extend that courtesy of like, come back to work. Let’s get you back doing something that benefits you that benefits our company.” It shows a couple of different things that we care about you as an individual, that we wanna make sure that you’re taken care of. We don’t want you back out there doing something that could possibly hurt you, but we also don’t want you stuck at home. And then two, it’s a great thing. Like, when somebody’s off of a job site, when somebody’s away from their crew, it depletes. Because not seeing that person there, it reminds everybody, I have more work to do. It reminds everybody that something bad happened. Having that person back with them is such a huge general culture boost. And I think that all of those things play so well into building a healthy culture on a job site. And that’s something that we’ve referenced before about making sure that people’s safety is prioritized, that the way that we handle these claims, the way that we handle these accidents is all really comes back to making sure that everyone gets home safely.
Rocio Luna: And that’s a great point that you make, too, because as the human resources, as also as the employer and the owner, you want to make sure that when someone gets hurt that they are aware that there’s going to be a job for you when you come back. Don’t be scared. Take whatever time that you need to take, that you feel that your body needs to come to recover and your job is not a jeopardy. We want you back. And of course, because here in California, you only get paid 66% of your wages. When you come back to return to work, you’re going to be paid the full amount. So every employee wants to get paid the full amount, even if they’re doing something that they might not like for the moment. But that’s way better than sitting at home and then getting paid by the insurance company 66%. And then you don’t get paid on time because there’s always that delay with the insurance company sending over the check. And that’s also another frustration on that end where employees are like, when is the insurance company going to pay me? I haven’t received my benefits.
Trevor Casey: So it really is makes sense for everybody for you to come back to work because you get paid more, the employer has less indemnity issues. It’s just a win-win honestly for everybody.
Rocio Luna: Yes.
Trevor Casey: So let’s say somebody wants to reach out to you. They say, “Hey, I love what you had to say, I want to learn more about how to lower my EMR.” Where can they find you? I know personally looking on your LinkedIn, you put out tons of content so I know that’s one place places that you guys put out content?
Rocio Luna: So you could reach me out via LinkedIn, Rocio Luna or you can also reach me out via Instagram which is rocio_ins_services and that’s going to be my Instagram. And then you can also reach me out via email which is my first name rocio@insurax.com. And that’s probably the best way to get a hold of me.
Beau Lunceford: Perfect. And we’ll put all of that information in the show notes so people have easy, instant click access to reach out to you. Well, Rocio, let me ask you this one last thing. If you could say one big highlight thing that you wish people who were trying to lower their EMR, you wish that they would just like here in their brains, billboard on a highway, what is the one thing that you would let them know to help with their EMR?
Rocio Luna: I will let them know that there is different strategies to lower it. So I think sometimes people get frustrated and they don’t know that there’s different ways to lower it, because here, at least in California oftentimes what I’ve heard is that, “Well, I heard that from my broker that I just have to wait three years and then my EMR is going to drop off, because that’s when the claims fall off and everything rolls off.” And it’s like, “No, you could actually take steps in lowering down, putting strategies in or doing a claims management and seeing where you go.” But it’s all about controlling it and having a partner that could work with you, an insurance broker or a risk management program, and anyone that could help you out, because there’s different components to this strategy, and it’s something that I just want to let business owners that they have control over.
Beau Lunceford: There are options out there. There are things that people can be doing. You’re not stuck. You’re not trapped. I love that. Well, Rocio, is there anything else that we didn’t get to talk about that you want to make sure that we hit, that you want to plug?
Rocio Luna: Another great point that you brought up is, it’s culture. Oftentimes that’s a very big thing, because if employees feel that they’re taking, especially in construction. I think a big thing is that there’s a big difference in culture wise what goes on in the office and what goes on in the field. And oftentimes, in the field, I feel it’s obviously a lot of pressure and there’s always a lot of different strategies within management. But I also feel like we take a step back and just really inform everyone that we care about you, and we know without you guys, we have no company. So all of you guys are our jewels. And everybody plays an important part to this. And if one guy falls down, then we’re lacking this. So you want to make sure that all of us work together to be safe, perform good, we all get paid, we all go back to our families, and we just continue to grow together.
Beau Lunceford: Oh, fantastic.
Trevor Casey: Those are great points. Well, Rocio, thank you so much again for your time today. We really appreciate it. Hope everybody who listens to this episode reaches out and really takes some time to decrease their EMR because it just shows how important it is. But again, thank you all and thank you, Rocio, and we’ll catch you on the next one.
Rocio Luna: It was my pleasure. Thank you, guys.
Trevor Casey: Of course.
OUTRO (23:42 – 26:23)
Beau Lunceford: What was really cool about this conversation to me was that this was my first time talking to Rocio. I don’t know if you can tell, but our dynamic really just kind of falls together, that we’re able to find out more information about these EMR’s and why they’re so important and the different ways that she’s actively helping people get those rates lowered. And I think she does a really great job of walking us through how to make that process happen and then still giving us an opportunity to point people to her and show how it is that she can help them take that next level. Because it’s not just about risk management. It’s about having procedures in place. It’s about taking those procedures and making sure that they’re set up in the right way that they’ve got those access to mobile medical units or making sure that you’ve got things in place to keep your people working, to keep things moving forward, to build up that company culture. I mean, I am a sucker for good company culture talk.
Trevor Casey: Absolutely.
Beau Lunceford: So to see all the ways that we can keep all those things high, keep motivations up, keep things moving forward, it was just really great to hear that there’s opportunities out there for people who are struggling with a high EMR, you’re not just stuck.
Trevor Casey: Absolutely. And Rocio, we really appreciate your time and your expertise. Your intelligence and expertise really shines through, and I’m sure your clients can appreciate that as well. So anyone who is has a high EMR in some of those states that, that Beau listed earlier, please feel free to reach out to Rocio. We’re going to put her information down in the show notes. She’s more than happy to schedule a call with you to learn a little bit more about your situation, the predicament that you may be in, and how to help you out as best as she can. And one thing I can say, she’s very, very quick at responding. She’s on top of her stuff. So I think you would really enjoy working with her.
Beau Lunceford: Rocio also has a really great library of content that she’s constantly producing. If you follow her on LinkedIn, you will see all the stuff that she’s putting out there to help people in the state that they’re in, meeting them where they’re at.
Trevor Casey: Absolutely, yes. And as we always say, we love good content and she puts out good content. Highly recommend a very, very good LinkedIn follow. And I believe she has an Instagram as well that we’ll throw down there in the show notes. So again, Rocio, thank you so much. All of her contact information will be listed in the bottom. If anyone has any questions or topics that they would like us to bring up on upcoming episodes, please feel free to shoot us an email, send us a LinkedIn message. We’d be more than happy to have you on our show or discuss the topic that you would like to learn a little bit more about. But Beau, as always, stay covered.
PODCAST CLOSER
Thanks for tuning in to Inside Insight presented by CR Solutions. If you like anything that you heard today, subscribe, follow and rate the show so that other industry pioneers like yourself can find it. Maybe even share it with someone you think might benefit from this episode. Do you have a question that you want answered or a concept that you need explain, you can email us at info@c-r-solutions.com with the subject line “Podcast Question”, and maybe your question, we’ll make it onto one of our episodes. You can also submit a question via our website at c-r-solutions.com/podcast. There are no dumb questions, only opportunities to learn something new. Now that’s a wrap on this episode. Join us next time on Inside Insight presented by CR Solutions. Stay covered.
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