New Technology Helps Local Governments Gauge Risk Management Costs

The Public Entity Risk Institute (PERI), a nonprofit research institute focused on risk management training and education, has created a new online, analytical tool designed to aid local governments in benchmarking their risk management programs. Data Exchange Dashboards present statistical comparisons via the Internet in user-friendly charts and figures that enable quick comparative assessments with similar organizations.

"Government administrators and board members rely heavily on statistics for determining overall performance of an organization's operations," explained Gerard Hoetmer, Executive Director of PERI. "While annual statistics are useful in assessing performance, understanding how a local community's programs compare to other governments is key. We designed these Dashboards to simplify the benchmarking process and help public entities gain valuable insights into their risk management programs."

Data Exchange Dashboards are interactive, Web-based graphic reports displaying data in user-friendly graphs, charts, and meters. These risk managements metrics are color-coded and feature mouseovers to illustrate simply how a public entity compares against a selected benchmark. Dashboards provide a low-cost way for users to compare against peers within the same state, region, and nationwide. Additionally, users can select the type of organization to be compared (e.g., cities, school districts, countries, and transit authorities), as well as the size of the organization. Key risk management metrics featured in Dashboards include:

• Average Cost per Claim
• Percentage of Open Claims
• Average Claim Duration
• Average Reporting Lag Time
• Average Cost of Litigated Claims vs. Non-Litigated Claims
• Total Gross Incurred by Year
• Total Paid by Year.

In addition, Dashboard users can view incurred claim breakdowns by several factors. For liability data, this would include breakdowns by claim type, attorney involvement, liability type, and department. For workers' compensation, these breakdowns would cover body part, claim benefit type, attorney involvement, cause of loss, and nature of injury.

Dashboards are the most recent addition to the PERI Data Exchange, an innovative program that supports public sector organizations in analyzing liability and workers' compensation benchmarking and performance measurement. Public entities, risk pools, third party administrators, and others electronically submit data which PERI maps into a common format. Participants then visit the Data Exchange Website to run reports and access Dashboards. The program is open to all governmental agencies able to supply selected claims and profile data and PERI offers a range of reporting options to meet the needs of a wide range of public sector participants.