Employment Practices Liability Insurance comes with HELPLINE
By William W. Thompson, CPA, RPLU
President, CPA Mutual
Did you know that purchasing Employment Practices Liability Insurance (EPLI) helps you in two ways?
It not only protects you from the very real risk of paying large sums of money to defend and settle employment claims, you also get the benefits of CPA Mutual's risk management partner the workplace HELPLINE ®! Just look at what one of our current members had to say:
"I recently used the helpline and received an approach to solving my problem that no one else had suggested. The advice from the helpline has always been accurate and prompt. Keep up the good work!" – Firm administrator, 104 employees
The following summarizes the success and statistics from the CPA Mutual HELPLINE program. Since our relationship formed in 1998, we are proudly entering our 10th year of working together to help mitigate our members employment practices risk!
Proactive usage for CPA Mutual policyholders is 30 times the insurance industry standard. At renewal every year, HELPLINE re-educates each policyholder through their trademark Relationship Management (RM) efforts (calling and personally educating each policyholder on the value of the services). These refined RM techniques combined with other high-touch, engaging strategies form the foundation for a real value-add and loss control program that benefits you, our member. As a CPA Mutual HELPLINE member, you also have access to the following services:
- Employer HELPLINE: Toll-free and Web site (e-mail) access to nationally recognized employment law firm Epstein Becker & Green P.C. for support with issues ranging from regulatory/compliance concerns, to policies and procedures, as well as complex personnel situations. Personalized attention to your organization's specific questions and issues is provided, and all communications are strictly confidential. A no later than the end of the next business day response time will be provided on all questions.
- Online Support & Resource Center: You can gain access to a comprehensive resource center that includes federal and state news and regulation updates, sample human resource (HR) policies, HR topic libraries, forms and posters, and other valuable support tools. You can also ask the employment law attorneys your unique questions online at the click of a button!
- Monthly HR Express Updates & HR Alerts: Each month, you will receive HR Express Updates via e-mail to help keep continuously changing workplace issues and regulations in front of you. Each update contains an interactive Question and Case Digest of the Month, federal and state news and regulation updates, as well as other valuable HR information. Let the news come to you instead of endless searching to stay up-to-date.
Just to give you an idea about how our current members utilize the services consider this:
- 90.2 percent of the actively enrolled policyholders have proactively utilized the services at least once while enrolled in the program. This represents utilization that is 30 times the industry standard.
- 55.7 percent of the actively enrolled policyholders have used the services in the last year, from Nov. 1, 2006 through Oct. 31, 2007.
- Total calls, e-mails and requests for information to HELPLINE from the actively enrolled policyholders since the beginning are 1,240, which equates to an average of 22.5 requests per active user. There are a total of 2,038 requests from all policyholders that have participated (including nonrenewals).
- Total calls, e-mails and requests for information to HELPLINE in the last year as an average of 3.9 requests per active user.
Top Issues: In the past year (11/1/2006 - 10/31/2007), the top 10 issues raised by CPA Mutual policyholders have been:
Issue Percentage of Total
| Policies & Procedures | 11.76% |
| Fair Labor Standards Act | 8.82% |
| Compensation | 8.82% |
| Wage/Hour-State | 6.86% |
| Exempt/Non-Exempt | 6.86% |
| Disability | 5.88% |
| Termination/Discharge | 5.88% |
| ADA | 4.90% |
| COBRA | 2.94% |
| Employee Benefits | 2.94% |
|
Total |
65.66% |
Future Enhancements:
- HELPLINE will be upgrading the program Web site for enhanced user-friendliness and modernization of look and feel for policyholders.
- In 2008, we will be releasing a Harassment Training Course, compliant with the AB1825 California regulations. It will be made available to the designated HELPLINE contacts at each Insured.
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