AMCOMP Report Gives Stress Claim Advice
NU Online News Service, July 26, 12:50 p.m. EST?A group for workers' compensation insurance professionals said it has prepared a report to help people in the industry do a better job handling mental stress claims from a catastrophe like the terrorist attack on New York?s World Trade Center.
The American Society of Workers Comp Professionals, Inc. in Mount Vernon, N.Y., said the report came about after it assembled the Workers Compensation Mental Stress Council to study the impact of stress claims on insurers and better understand how to more effectively and equitably address workers compensation mental stress claims.
Donald T. DeCarlo, chairman and president of AMCOMP, a not-for-profit dedicated to creating a workers' comp education program, "said the report "presents an overview of the latest and possibly most horrific series of events in which work-related mental stress is said to have caused an employee to suffer a mental disability."
The AMCOMP report contains information on New York law related to mental stress claims and mental stress claims under the law in other states.
It also takes up terrorist acts and the doctrine that makes workers' compensation the exclusive remedy for such claims. The report looks at the interplay between the 9/11 Victim Compensation Fund and the New York workers' compensation law; New York workers' comp stress claims, and the issue of coping with the stress of disasters and terrorism.
The report was compiled using the expertise of the AMCOMP Mental Stress Council and various AMCOMP board members from around the country, AMCOMP said.
Mr. DeCarlo said the report is intended to provide those involved with the workers' comp system in New York "with both background information and an overview of the law in New York. It also is intended to provide, countrywide, insight into the future of mental stress claims arising from events such as 9/11."
AMCOMP, a not-for-profit corporation founded in 1998, has dedicated itself to the development of higher educational standards and to the creation of an education program for workers' comp.
The group said its goal was realized last year with the introduction of the AMCOMP Workers Compensation Certified Professional "WCCP" designation. The WCCP program seeks to develop a basic foundation of knowledge of the various aspects of workers compensation such as law, claims handling, risk management, underwriting pricing and how these work together.
AMCOMP said those seeking more information about the report should contact Susan Barros at 914-699-2020, ext. 115.
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