Wearable technology from a risk management perspective
Readers will be fascinated by a write up of an interview between AREA member BrainXChange (organizer of EWTS annual events) and Ron Bellows, Risk Strategist at AIG. The original article entitled Wearables in Risk Management: Interview with AIG’s Ron Bellows discusses wearable technology from a management consultancy perspective.
A short extract from the detailed interview is given below:
As part of his role in risk management, Bellows has consulted with large multinational customers to help them find solutions to their risk management issues. Often, they were most interested in workers’ comp risk because it tends to drive loss frequency and severity, impacts the workforce and absenteeism, and reduces efficiency and profitability.
Workers tend to be 30-50% of a company’s operating expense, so if you can reduce injuries you can increase efficiency, profitability, etc. Today with the shortage of workers that we see, a lot of companies are working at a 20% absenteeism rate.
Imagine what happens when you can’t find enough people to man the tasks in a factory. If you also have extensive injuries that put people out of work or on restrictive duty, it’s even more difficult to run the business. Making sure people can work safely and come back to the job every day is very important to risk managers. I also help risk managers with issues like fleet, liability, supply chain, business continuity, and disaster recovery—anything that keeps them up at night.