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Former Players Sue the NFL

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Risk Management, along with numerous other publications, have covered the serious problem of concussions — and their repercussions — within the NFL. From the sad stories of Andre Waters, Terry Long and Tom McHale, the bad press surrounding the situation has worsened as science has begun to link frequent, recurring concussions to brain damage.

Many feel the NFL is to blame. Fingers have been pointed and now papers are being served as 11 ex-players filed a class-action lawsuit Friday in federal court in New Orleans. According to the documents, each has developed mental or physical problems from concussions suffered during their professional football careers. As the lawsuit states:

“Wanting their players on the field instead of training tables, and in an attempt to protect a multibillion dollar business, the NFL has purposefully attempted to obfuscate the issue and has repeatedly refuted the connection between concussions and brain injury to the disgust of Congress, which has blasted the NFL’s handling of the issue on multiple occasions.”

And it’s not only the NFL that is being taken to court over these allegations. Helmet maker Riddell was also named as a defendant in the suit. According to a recent report, the company marketed its football helmets as reducing or preventing concussions despite having no scientific or medical evidence to support the claim.

It is certainly easy to put the blame on the league and the maker of helmets worn during play, and in no way should they be considered innocent. But what about personal responsibility? What about risk management for thy self? Football is inherently a dangerous sport to be played at the players own risk. Should others be held fully responsible for a game that has, since the first game was played in 1869, been known to cause various injuries and even death (mostly indirectly)?

 

2012 Insurance Trends

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Like many other media outlets, we compiled a “Risks of 2012” list that ran in our latest issue of Risk Management. Among the challenges facing companies this year, we highlighted the supply chain disruptions, retaining talent, and failing to embed risk management into strategy. Of course, those are issues for all organizations. Insurance Networking News has come up with its top ten list of insurance company trends for the coming year.

Here are their top five. Head over to their website for the others.

1. Actuaries are embracing faster and more efficient asset liability management models and analyses to help improve risk management.

2. Insurers are streamlining and enhancing core administration processes with new software solutions that use business rules to create new policy type products that get to market faster.

3. Health care payers are preparing for the uncertainties of health care reform by investing in analytical and workflow tools to help increase claims processing efficiencies.

4. Regulations are placing greater emphasis on governance, risk transparency and compliance, causing insurers to increase their investment in enterprise risk management frameworks.

5. Expected increases in regulatory reporting requirements means insurers will need to better interconnect financial data, measure contributors to performance, and generate real-time investment and accounting information.

3 Steps to Managing Reputation Risks

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Henry Ristuccia of Deloitte has some good advice for companies that are still behind the times when it comes to managing reputation risk: identify potential threats and monitor them vigilantly. He also notes that companies should be sure to focus on the upside of reputation as well as the downside. Most companies already engage in marketing efforts to improve how stakeholders perceive them, and that’s key: studies have shown that, once a company’s reputation becomes rosy, it’s likely to stay that way.

Ristuccia explains.

A highly positive reputation is itself a tool in managing risks to reputation. The PR firm Edelman’s 2011 “Trust Barometer,” an annual survey that “measures attitudes about the state of trust,” found that, when a company is trusted, 51% of stakeholders will believe positive information about the company after hearing it once or twice. And only 25% will believe negative information after hearing it once or twice. Distrusted companies, however, fare poorly by comparison: only 15% of stakeholders will believe positive information about a company they don’t trust, and 57% will believe negative information after hearing it once or twice about such organizations. This study also linked trust to customer purchases, investor share purchases, and people’s recommendations to others.

Head over to RMmagazine.com to read the rest.

Contractor Deaths in Afghanistan Illustrate the Grave Risks for Those Operating in Conflict Zones

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The New York Times published an article yesterday that reflects the changing nature of the threat in Afghanistan from the public to the private sector as the U.S. military pulls out more soldiers. There are many forms that this risk takes, but the most obvious is deaths. And in 2011, for the first time, there were more civilian contractors working for U.S. companies that died in Afghanistan than there were U.S. soldiers.

Rod Nordlan of the Times reports.

“By continuing to outsource high-risk jobs that were previously performed by soldiers, the military, in effect, is privatizing the ultimate sacrifice,” said Steven L. Schooner, a law professor at George Washington University who has studied the civilian casualties issue.

Last year, at least 430 employees of American contractors were reported killed in Afghanistan: 386 working for the Defense Department, 43 for the United States Agency for International Development and one for the State Department, according to data provided by the American Embassy in Kabul and publicly available in part from the United States Department of Labor.

The piece goes on to break down the statistics further.

There were 113,491 employees of defense contractors in Afghanistan as of January 2012, compared with about 90,000 American soldiers, according to Defense Department statistics. Of those, 25,287, or about 22 percent of the employees, were American citizens, with 47 percent Afghans and 31 percent from other countries.

The bulk of the known contractor deaths are concentrated among a handful of major companies, particularly those providing interpreters, drivers, security guards and other support personnel who are particularly vulnerable to attacks.

The biggest contractor in terms of war zone deaths is apparently the defense giant L-3 Communications. If L-3 were a country, it would have the third highest loss of life in Afghanistan as well as in Iraq; only the United States and Britain would exceed it in fatalities.

Over the past 10 years, L-3 and its subsidiaries, including Titan Corporation and MPRI Inc., had at least 370 workers killed and 1,789 seriously wounded or injured through the end of 2011 in Iraq and Afghanistan, records show. In a statement, a spokeswoman for L-3, Jennifer Barton, said: “L-3 is proud to have the opportunity to support the U.S. and coalition efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan. We mourn the loss of life of these dedicated men and women.”

Obviously, an employee or contractor dying is a worst-case scenario for any company that operates in a conflict zone. But a few years ago, we looked at the specifics of the other threats that risk managers working for employers whose business bring them to the world’s most dangerous locations.

An insurer’s or risk manager’s goals in a post-conflict region do not differ significantly from their goals in any region. The risk assessment process is basically the same: (1) identify the risks (2) quantify the risks, (3) control/reduce the risks, (4) verify losses, and (5) mitigate future risks based on lessons learned. The major difference, however, is that the risks involved are far from ordinary.

Transportation and construction risks reign paramount, and these, combined with the ever-present threats of theft and criminal activity in a region where the rule of law has been fractured, exacerbate the many challenges of operating in a post-conflict region.

Roadway conditions are often abysmal and simple traffic controls are universally absent. This means that accidents are both more frequent and more likely to cause greater loss of life and property.

Bridges, culverts, tunnels and any other infrastructure in frequent use should be inspected with great care. The Salang Tunnel, for example, sits more than 11,000 feet above the Hindu Kush Mountains in Northern Afghanistan. As the main road connecting northern and southern Afghanistan, it is the world’s highest road tunnel. However, the entire southern entrance and ventilation system of the tunnel had been destroyed during the conflict with the former Soviet Union and subsequent fighting between the Taliban and Northern Alliance.

In December 2001, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) provided funding to the French-based Agency for Technical Cooperation and Development (ACTED) to clear the tunnel. In conjunction with the Afghan Ministry of Public Works, ACTED discharged the rubble clogging the tunnel and removed nearby landmines and unexploded bombs, mortars, rockets and other munitions. Although, commercial and military traffic began using the tunnel again in January 2002, USAID still must provide $1.6 million per year for snow clearance, emergency repairs and general traffic control just to keep the road passable.

Head over to RMmagazine.com to read the rest of this article.