At Troy Insurance, the red flags aren’t the big claims - they’re the small ones that show up quietly and often. Left unchecked, they lay the groundwork for major losses.
Minor workplace incidents don’t just disappear - they compound. OSHA investigations regularly uncover overlooked safety issues that not only lead to fines and shutdowns but also drive up workers' compensation premiums.
In Idaho, claim frequency has declined and rates have followed, but experts caution that this trend is fragile. Historical claims continue to impact premiums years later, making proactive safety programs essential for long-term cost control.
That’s why co-owner Derek Bruce (pictured) and advisor Chris Raykovich don’t wait for clients to learn the hard way. They use “near miss” reporting and lagging indicator data to guide early interventions, helping employers establish proactive safety cultures. Their approach blends education, tech tools and practical planning to keep injuries—and premium hikes—from snowballing.
“One of the things we talk about quite a bit is [that] frequency breeds severity,” Bruce said. “So, it gets to a point where you get some of these [businesses] that have little claims here and there, and then all of a sudden, [they] have a big one.”
This includes leveraging data from new reporting standards set by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA).
“There's more data reported now than there ever was,” Raykovich said. “But the hard part with injury data [is that] it's all lagging indicators, the injury [has] already occurred.”
To break out of that reactive cycle, Raykovich encourages the collection of “near miss” data - cases where no injury occurred but could have. He sees it as a proactive way to stop claims before they happen.
“If you can get them to start focusing on those near misses, get controls in place before an actual employee injury occurs, that can really help mitigate some of the severity,” he said.
Still, cultural shifts are slow. Bruce pointed out that outdated attitudes can discourage early reporting. For Troy Insurance, fostering a culture where reporting is “user friendly” is essential.
“Back in the day, employees used to not want to be able to submit a claim or anything for an injury, because [of] the fear of getting fired or getting laid off,” he said.
Education plays a critical role in that transformation. Raykovich emphasized the need to teach clients how to manage workers’ compensation costs - something many don’t realize they can influence.
“A big part of what we do is we educate our clients on how they can control workers compensation costs,” Raykovich said. “That's big for a client, because they can have some control over it, whereas with other insurance policies, there's not much control.”
But for small business owners juggling sales, accounting and operations, the added layer of managing safety can be overwhelming. That’s where Troy steps in with practical tools - from coordinating return-to-work plans to offering access to digital platforms that track safety training, certifications and incidents.
“We can provide clients the opportunity to be able to use some of these tools that help track training and certs,” Bruce said. “A lot of the carriers that we use have websites that people can go in and they can look at different safety programs and safety resources. They can look at training videos specific to employee job duties or industries.”
Helping clients understand the long-term impact of lagging indicators is also key. As Raykovich explained, claims from years ago can continue to affect a business’s experience modification rate (eMod), which in turn affects their premiums.
“Something that happened three years ago, they're now paying for today,” Raykovich said. “And once they start feeling that pain, we can have some good conversations with those businesses.”
In Idaho, where NCCI rates have been decreasing, employers are beginning to feel that pressure more acutely. Bruce warned that low rates won’t last forever.
“You're starting to see a squeeze there; at some point, eMod rates will start going up, loss ratios will start going up,” Bruce said. “Clients are going to have to start paying more attention to the health and safety of their employees.”
If they don’t, the consequences can be immediate and costly, according to David Troy, owner of Troy Insurance Agency.
“They can shut a workplace down or a construction site down until an investigation is complete,” Troy said, referring to serious injuries that trigger OSHA investigations. “When you stop an industry or a construction company from doing any work for a period of time, there's a tremendous cost to that.”
In a shifting market, where more carriers are competing in the workers’ compensation space and underwriters are scrutinizing client controls more closely, proactive safety programs are becoming table stakes.
“Schedule rating is a tool underwriters are using to incentive employers to implement proactive safety controls,” Raykovich said. “They're doing a deep dive into what kind of training programs, safety programs, return to work programs that they have in place.”
The real challenge, according to Troy, is convincing businesses to act before something goes wrong.
“Oftentimes we will see an employer who has a number of employees, and maybe they've been a number of years without any incidents, and they're reluctant to talk about safety programs and return to work policies,” Troy said. “The challenge we have is to get the attention of some of these good employers, but maybe they haven't had an incident.”
