Ian Bridgman

Dr Les Kertay – Chief Psychologist at The Claim Lab Is there a mental health crisis?Yes, I think so. I base this on these premises: 1. There is a substantial degree of stress that people are feeling at work, and it is contributing to increased reports of burnout and mental health challenges;2. People in general, […]

Ok let’s set a bar here…Serious medical conditions or injuries, whether at work or elsewhere, will result in disability or workers compensation claims, and our job in the insurance business is to support the individual in their time of need. Yet in every claim there is more than just a medical condition.Let’s look at an […]

The Impact Of Loneliness On Recovery This is the first of a three-part series on ‘Loneliness’ and the impact that we see it has on recovery from serious medical conditions or injuries.  For Part 1, we give you some background and we will provide more details on our approach in subsequent newsletters.  The Impact of Loneliness on […]

I have worked with a few disability insurers who promote the “Work is Healthy” philosophy in claim management both in the US and Canada, although it seems more prevalent in Canada. I was reminded of this on a recent business trip, when I was fortunate to be invited to present at the Claim Vantage User […]

On Mental Health Parity – It’s the right thing to do It’s time to recognize that the line between mental and physical health is arbitrary and an artifact of the way that we talk about it, and not something that has any reality. Think about it: the last time you felt sick with a cold or […]

As our claim best practice expert, Mark Foerster takes a strategic view on the operational impact of Biopsychosocial in claims management.If you missed Part 1, Click Here, or Part 2, Click Here…. Also, on December 5th at 1.00pm ET, we are taking part in a Webinar with Munich Re, discussing this very topic with input from, our […]

By Dr Les Kertay – What’s the Problem?… In our last column, we introduced the distinction between a biomedical approach to diagnoses and a biopsychosocial approach. We noted that some of the difficulty with current claims processes, in disability and in workers’ compensation, is that we attempt to apply a biomedical model to something that […]

A Consistent Repeatable Measure! Over Medicalization of ClaimsThere has been much discussion in the claims profession concerning the “over medicalization of claims” in disability and in workers comp insurance over the years. What do we mean by this? Well, in the medical profession, a bio medical model is followed, a patient has a medical condition, […]

Sun Life are using The Claim Lab Questionnaire to capture information about plan members on long term disability. This ‘Plan Member Update’ function is showing significant benefits. Here is an exert from a Sun Life news release:

In some of our previous blogs we have talked about how psychosocial insights are beneficial for claim outcomes, case manager job satisfaction, and overall claims departments’ organizational health for several reasons. As anyone in the business world knows, if a ‘prospective’ project, strategic initiative, acquisition of a new tool is to be undertaken, subjective benefits […]