Aon Association Services offers a wide range of informative articles, claims studies, and fact sheets targeted to the needs of the Aging Services community. Check back often to read our latest Featured Risk articles.
Current Featured Risk Articles:
To protect residents, aging care providers must collaborate with their acute care partners and treat transitions as potentially risky, resident-centered events, rather than routine tasks.
CNA is pleased to present its seventh study on aging services professional liability claims.
As patients are admitted to rehabilitation centers sooner after hospitalization and with increasingly complex comorbidities, short-stay care and treatment providers are no less exposed to liability than their longer-term conterparts.
Hospice has become an increasing accepted option for endo-of-life care. Here are seven common types of administrative and clinical risk exposures associated with hospice operations.
Disaster planning includes more than floods, tornadoes and other relatively common occurrences. Leaders also must consider the possibility of less frequent but potentially cataclysmic events, such as solar superstorms.
Infection from Legionella bacteria and other waterborne pathogens remains a serious potential threat for hospitals, aging care organizations and other healthcare settings.
Aging Services Risk Topics:
Aging Services Claims Studies and Analysis
While the culture in many aging services organizations may be shifting, this study reveals no significant improvement in professional liability claims experience. The average indemnity and expense payments for claims continues to increase, suggesting that resident safety and qualify of services remain a concern in the aging services setting.
CNA believes that those facilities with a robust culture of human dignity and respect for all people are at significantly lower risk. Presents claims data and outlines related risk management strategies. Also includes analysis of the long term care litigation environment, discussions of two highlighted risks: elopement and falls, and provides a self-assessment tool to identify areas of potential risk.
The report includes an overview of the litigation environment, claims analysis and strategies for reducing risk exposures. Claims from not-for-profit and for-profit facilities from 2000 to 2004 are compared to provide a risk analysis that responds to two key questions:
- What are the risk exposures in not-for-profit organizations and how do these exposures compare with the for-profit sector?
- How can these risk exposures be prevented, diminished and/or better managed?
Quality of Care
Any slip or fall incident on the premises whether by resident, visitor or employee can have serious liability consequences for aging services organizations, including allegations of improper care, failure to properly assess and monitor, or failure to provide a safe environment of care.
In recent years, we have seen a trend in insurance claims that is disturbing, and that trend is the growing tendency to present claims as professional liability, resulting in significantly higher claims expense and payments.
Reducing Your Property and Casualty Insurance Costs
LeadingAge (formerly AAHSA) and Aon Association Services always strive to save program insureds money--and reduce risk--on property and casualty insurance. To achieve these objectives, loss control representatives offer risk management and loss control seminars and in-service training that are tailored to the specific needs of our program insureds. These programs are designed to help educate your executives and staff on ways to reduce risks, lower claim frequency and insurance costs.
High-tech systems are helping create a new approach to aging care. An increasing number of organizations are now considering adoption of remote sensing systems. What are the potential benefits and risks?
Guide to Property and Casualty Insurance for the Aging Services Industry
Commercial General Liability insurance is designed to protect business owners from a variety of exposures. It can cover liability arising from accidents on or off premises, to products sold by the insured that result in injury to the user, to contractual liability, leaving an owner free to concentrate on managing their business.
Assisted Living - A Risk Management Perspective on a Growing Industry
Employment & Organizational Best Practices for Risk Management
Know whom you are hiring up front to save yourself wasted recources down the line.
Criminal history record checks are important risk management tools but must not replace other risk management strategies designed to lessen the opportunity for abuse of vulnerable service recipients. The following are some of the more frequently asked questions concerning criminal history record checks.
Transformational Leadership: Key to Creating Aging Services Organizations of Choice(CNA)
Seven Strategies for Developing a High-Quality Direct Care Workforce (CNA)
Financial Risk Management: An Underwriting Perspective(CNA)
Employee and Staffing Agency Hiring Practices - Sound Policy is Key to Mitigating Risk(CNA)
Exit Interviews: Employee Perceptions Can Help Improve Morale, Reduce liability(CNA)
Auto Insurance and Vehicle Claims
The most common business auto claim is backing up into something. Expensive auto damage, repairs and injury can be avoided by teaching your not-for-profit's drivers to be cautious when backing up.
Many insureds assume the insurance follows the vehicle owner. That is usually true. Unfortunately, employees or volunteers using their own car on retirement home business may carry no insurance or more often have low limits.
Protect Your Business with Crisis and Emergency Planning
Business continuity planning is an important aspect of any risk management program. Win Chaiyabhat of Aon Chicago has written this article that addresses areas to consider when developing a business continuity and crisis management plan. Although the article is geared more toward a for-profit organization, there are interesting discussion points that should be reviewed by anyone involved in a company's risk management program, whether for-profit or not-for-profit. (Please note, this article is in PDF format.)
In the last year, weather-related and other emergency events caused millions of dollars in damage to LeadingAge (formerly AAHSA) member facilities and, in a few instances, caught the victims by surprise. In other cases, the insurance carried by those facilities covered not only the damage, but the evacuation of their residents and housing at alternate sites - even when the anticipated calamity did not come to pass.
Crisis Management: Responding Effectively to Media Inquiries(CNA)
Aging Services Marketing / Advertising Issues
False Advertising: Deceptive Marketing Practices=Real Liability(CNA)
Advertising Re-Emerges as a Significant Risk Exposure for Healthcare Organizations(CNA)
Data Security for Aging Services
Protect Your Organization Against Data Security Breaches (CNA)
All CNA Risk Management Articles