The ECs were a major factor in my leaving. Working now for a direct competitor. They don’t use colossus, but something equally ridiculous, but it’s easy to get additional authority beyond it. I found some, not all ECs to be rigid & cheap. One in particular was downright abusive. If you worked BIs in the western region you know who I mean. The whole EC process is designed to cut values. This often led to litigation. Then an award would come in & the claim would settle for what I wanted, after an additional year of stress & costs. I wonder if that position will be sent overseas?
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If you worked on the east coast you’re familiar with the famous line “I just don’t buy the injury!” Ok Dr. EC. I have hundreds of pages of medical reports but you “don’t buy” the injury so you just chopped down my consult to an embarrassing level. When is the last time an EC was ever performance managed? Never saw it over 15 years.
I work for a major competitor doing a similar position in repped injury. Today I did an eval, very slowly, thoroughly, looking through hundreds of lines of bills in MDP & taking reductions. I asked for authority to settle for a large number. Within 15 minutes I had my authority- no EC consult, no ripping my eval apart line by line, no demand that I request unrelated prior records. No being made to feel incompetent. I will settle the claim and it will not drag on through years of litigation. I’m so glad I don’t have to deal with a certain abusive EC anymore. So glad I’m gone!
They were also a factor in me leaving. Lots of the stress was from dealing with incompetent ECs. Most have been in their positions for a very long time and they were never trained on their markets. They’re using values from 1985! Many cases I handled could have been settled if the EC granted my number early in the claim. BecUse I could t get money on the files the overall amount paid out was substantially more esp with litigation costs. I went to a carrier that doesn’t have a bogus software program and also doesn’t have ECs scolding you like a child. I was told the main goal of the EC was severity. Surprised someone in the state DOIs doesn’t latch onto this goal and pursue something against the company.
My past experience with the ECs was that they had limited knowledge about the litigation process, the true cost of litigation, potential verdict values of the particular venue, rules of the courts (offers of judgment), or negotiation skills. Many ECs had never negotiated a claim via mediation or settlement conference with attorneys and judges present. A lot of venues have OJ rules that penalize the defendant (insurance company) for failure to achieve a jury verdict less than the plaintiff's last settlement offer prior to trial. I've had cases where pre-trial, we were $500 - $1,000 apart from settling the claim and the EC refused to grant any additional authority. They've resulted in verdicts higher than the last pre-trial offer, penalties of +10X the amount of the difference in settlement offers, many thousands of dollars in expert and defense attorney fees, and court costs. Yet the bean counters complain about defense costs and use it as a basis to raise premiums on consumers??? The ECs are under the marching orders of the higher ups to minimize claim values and their MCO's yearly severity ratings depend on the % of settlements within the Colossus "range". Good on you for exiting...so glad I'm no longer there too.