Business News: Amerisure, MedRisk and Crawford & Co.

Amerisure, a proper and casualty carrier based in Farmington Hills, Michigan, has teamed up with Insurance & Mobility Solutions to launch a fleet usage-based insurance program to Michigan motor carriers.

Amerisure said it is taking a proactive approach to an insurance Eline that has been impacted by inadequate rates, increased claims frequency, spiking severity trends, and increasing premium leakage.

IMS, based in Waterloo, Canada, will provide Amerisure with commercial fleet telemetry technology that collects data and delivers a driver behavior-based score for analysis, provides recommendations for participant improvement, and enables credits toward insurance premiums based on IMS’s scoring model.

“Our premium savings approach is unique because it focuses on how fleet drivers behave, rather than the distance they drive,” said Kevin Clary, vice president of risk management at Amerisure. “We believe this will lead to more impactful reductions in losses and will keep business owners motivated to participate in the program and improve their fleets.”

MedRisk, a managed care provider for workers’ compensation insurers, says it has expanded its “telerehab” services to prevent the spread of the novel coronavirus in physical therapy appointments.

MedRisk, based in King of Prussia, Pa., said it is following a recommendation by the Centers for Disease Control and the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases to institute “social distancing measures” to help people avoid exposure.

MedRisk said patients in its care can access one-on-one sessions with a telerehab physical therapist from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. EDT seven days a week. The company said otherwise, patients may skip physical therapy sessions or postpone the start of physical rehabilitation.

MedRisk has also broadened criteria for the type of patients qualifying for telerehab. Historically, a patient’s condition needs to be deemed clinically appropriate by a MedRisk physical therapist, and patients typically treat at a clinic before transitioning to telerehab. For the interim, care can be initiated via telerehab rather than in a clinic. To participate, patients need a mobile device with WIFI or cellular data, the company said.

Crawford & Co., a global third-party administrator based in Atlanta, says it has expanded its decontamination service to clean and restore sites in the United States that have been exposed to coronavirus to minimize interruption.

The enhanced service will soon be available in Australia, Canada and the U.K., the company said.

The decontamination service provides organizations with access to over 700 licensed and insured biohazard contractors across the U.S. The service offers a rapid-reaction capability, with contractors able to respond within one hour of a notification to the the company’s call center to restore affected sites.

All contractors are rigorously vetted by Crawford’s Contractor Connection unit and are professionally equipped to restore sites affected by a range of biohazards, including COVID-19, the company said.