Brian Chance is a Senior Vice President, Claims and Risk Manager in the Cost Based Efficiency division at Stephens Insurance, LLC. In this role, he engages with clients to develop strategies to eliminate hidden costs inside their workers' compensation programs. Brian has 30+ years of experience in the insurance industry with a focus on large employer self-insured workers' compensation programs. He specializes in developing processes to identify, quantify, and eliminate hidden costs in large workers' comp programs. Brian holds an MBA from Drexel University in Philadelphia and a bachelor's degree from Rutgers University as well as CPCU and AIC designations. He currently serves as Past President of the National Retail and Restaurant Defense Association. In today's episode of the In The Know podcast, Chris Hampshire and Brian take a look at the workers' compensation and claim spaces and the broker's perspective on all that is currently happening in workers comp.

Key Takeaways

• Brian reflects on the decisions that led him to working in workers' compensation.

• Transitioning into the broker and claims side of the business.

• Crafting an effective workers' comp program with each client.

• Details of a cost-based efficiency approach to workers' comp.

• Key improvements to the workers' comp industry over the last decade.

• Mitigating the costs of medical workers' comp claims.

• Steps of a brokerage perspective on approaching claims.

• Brian's decision to become an instructor in risk management.

• Utilizing AI data to improve decision-making and increase desired results.

• Ideas for articulating the value of the insurance industry to new talent.

• Advice for anyone who is considering a career as a claim rep.

• A five-year look at the future of workers' compensation technology.

• Brian's kind advice to his early career self.

Quotes

• "Having those physical labor relationships in my life and growing up doing those things myself, I really appreciated what it must be like for an injured worker to basically have their livelihood at risk."

• "The most important component of any workers' comp program is the focus on the injured worker."

• "We're in the position to make sure the injured worker doesn't make decisions out of fear or worry."

• "We have developed metrics that evaluate the cost of a workers comp platform."

• "The incentives to do the wrong thing have started to go away in the industry."

• "I became an instructor because I wanted to impart the knowledge I've gained growing up in the industry. Because it's a great industry."

• "Claims handling is as much an art as it is a science."