Risk managers have more than their share of challenges as they strive to keep loss costs down and employees safe, but topping the list of what keeps them awake at night are rising medical costs, followed (distantly) by the threat of pandemics, according to a series of industry surveys recently conducted by Specialty Risk Services (SRS), a property-casualty third-party administrator for workers' compensation and liability claims.
While 52 percent of respondents worry about rising medical costs, 12 percent ranked pandemics as their biggest concern, the survey found. Privacy issues and unhealthy employees tied for third with six percent each. However, looking ahead five years from now, SRS said that risk managers' worries shift to talent management and an unhealthy employee population, which topped the list of biggest future concerns at 37 percent, followed by rising medical costs at 34 percent.
In fact, 59 percent of industry professionals say they consider overweight employees to be at greatest risk for workplace injuries in the future followed a far second by depressed employees at 20 percent and the aging workforce at 13 percent, the study concluded.
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