Is your cell phone ever 'off', are you ever off the clock? This is why employers are at increased risk for worker's compensation issues and the line is graying every day between work and off-time.
According to an article at the Insurance Journal employers who supply their employees with company cell phones, laptops, BlackBerries, iPads and other portable devices could be in for a surprise if an employee is injured while using the device when off-site or off the clock.
Insurance claims professionals say claims made by workers injured while doing things where the relation to their employment is unclear are on the rise. This is largely due they say to the increased use of mobile devices and is therefore challenging traditional notions of work-related injuries.
At this year’s Risk and Insurance Management Society (RIMS) meeting in Vancouver, these experts advised employers and risk managers to establish clear rules on employees’ use of mobile devices in order to mitigate injury claims.
Example
Let's say an inusrance salesman is driving to see a client and has a laptop open on the passenger seat, a smart phone in his hand, and is drtiving along a suburban road.
This example occurs every day. Now picture what might occur if he were to be injured in an accident and files a workers’ compensation claim? Is the claim compensable?
Where was he going? Was he coming from or going to a sales call? On the way to his daughter's soccer game and checking voicemail one last time or planning to finish a sales proposal on his laptop while watching the soccer game?
“These are real issues. People do this kind of stuff all the time and it really has presented a lot of very serious hazards out there and in the workplace. This isn’t just about driving while texting or looking on a computer, but driving presents some of the most serious exposures that are out there for the industry,” said Maureen McCarthy, Liberty Mutual, manager of Workers’ Compensation and Managed Care tells Insurance Journal.
Of course there have always been employees on the road but times have changed, especially in the last 5-10 years. The era of defined routes anbd use of pay phones on the side of the road are long behind us. You've seen them, there are now drivers reading reports or texting while driving. That may even have been you I saw in the lane next to me.
The compensability of a workers' comp claim was much easier to determine when the workplace itself was one physicasl location that we entered at 8:00 a.m. and exited at 5:00 p.m. Of course, a lot of people have abandoned their cubicles. In 2009, there were 17.2 million people working from home. That number is expected to double by 2012.
McCarthy says the challenge is not just that more people are working from home. With mobile devices, people can — and increasingly do— work from many locations: houses, cars, clients’ locations, coffeehouses, subways, and train stations. This summer you may even see businesspeople working at the beach.
Insurers are also concerned with what employees are doing when they are not in the office. Are they checking email when on vacation, or while home due to sickness. Are they taking conference calls in the car while driving?
Much of this is employee driven and not mandated by employers. In her own research, McCarthy said she found very little evidence that management is mandating these kinds of behaviors.
But, even if management does not encourage the behavior, management could still have some responsibility if it is happening, just as it might in harassment situations. “If it’s going on in an organization, then as an employer sometimes you’re owning it, too, if people are working all over the place doing all sorts of things,” McCarthy said.
“Ultimately the courts are going to start opining on this…they are going to force us down a path but we have an opportunity today to change the rules or create them," said Michael Liebowitz, who is New York University’s director of risk management and insurance.
Conclusion
As mobile devices become both more sophisticated and more prevalent, the temptation for employees to use mobile devices while driving becomes commensurately larger. As noted by Ms. McCarthy, this reckless conduct creates increased crash risk – and more crashes mean rising insurance rates for employers.
So what’s the solution to this particular workers’ comp issue? Ms. McCarthy encourages “employers to have in place the proper usage agreements” for employee cell phones and other portable devices. And there are some signs that insurers may deny workers’ comp claims if companies don’t step up and work to reduce on-the-job distracted driving themselves.
