Management Consultants Specializing in
Occupational Safety & Health
Error Free Performance
Human Resources

Services / Rates

Basic Consultation and/or Survey
Program Partner Services
Program Safety & Health Newsletters
Executive Seminars and other Training
Speaker and Mini-workshop Sessions

	Basic Rate:	Back To Top
	$95 per hour, plus expenses (no charge for time spent traveling)
	Services:
	This rate applies to all consultations, surveys for underwriting purposes, and related activities. The rate applies to time spent preparing for a consultation/survey (although we rarely make a charge for this part of handling an assignment unless the preparation becomes extensive), the actual on-site time, and the report preparation time. As noted, we do not charge for the time we spend traveling to make a call unless it is needed on a rush basis, and in such cases we will gain an agreement as to what the extra charges might be before proceeding. The typical assignment for survey and consultation on most risks (for carriers) runs about 2.5 hours to 3.5 hours on-site, and about 2.5 to 3.0 hours to prepare the reports, depending of course on the complexity of the assignment. Travel expenses are more difficult to estimate. It depends on the location where we must make the call. We do work for other carriers all around the country and we make it a policy to combine calls in single trips as much as possible. Thus, if you are able and willing to be flexible on time service, we pro-rate all travel expenses across the number of calls we make on a trip and we can travel to rather distant areas of the country for what most local companies might charge you for "local" travel.

	Program Partner Flat-rate:	Back To Top
	Negotiated flat fee (typically $800 to $1,200) per assignment, plus excess travel expense over a pre-set threshold per assignment, plus any unusual non-travel expenses.
	Services:
	While it is a bit complicated to explain, this rate plan is the most popular and provides the best value for an active program or for a full portfolio of business. Typically, we establish a portion of the rate per call that we will absorb as travel expense. For example, we may agree to set a threshhold of $300 of travel expense per case while setting the per case flat rate at $900. This means that you pay $900 and we absorb any travel expenses up to $300. Furthermore, the $300 is applied in an aggregate amount when we handle more than one case on a single trip. Thus, for example, if we travel to Atlanta Metro area to handle 4 cases for your book of business, we absorb up to $1200 of travel expense for that trip, which is usually more than enough to cover all expenses. Furthermore, if we handle 4 cases in Atlanta and only 2 are your cases, we still pro rata the total expenses over 4 cases to determine the travel expense per case. If the pro rata cost is under $300, we absorb the total expense on your cases. This arrangement gives us strong incentive to manage travel expenses by carefully scheduling multiple calls in an area, making flight arrangements well in advance to reduce airfares, watching car, hotel, and meal expenses, etc. It also allows the carrier client to budget effectively for loss control activity. In addition, under this plan, we handle all aspects of the loss control services without additional charge. For example, we handle calls from policyholders to answer questions or gather additional loss control information. We send out additional information or literature to meet policyholders' requests or needs. We develop special information sheets on subjects of recurring interest to the policyholders in the program. (See Samples of our Work section of this site.) In short, without any additional charges, we do all the little but essential things a loss control department would be expected to do for policyholders so that the program is complete and the policyholders are well served. Setting the level of the flat rate is a function of the volume of work, its geographical spread, and the complexities of the work. A concentration of work in, say, one state or even one Metro area may lead to a lower flat rate and a lower threshold of absorbed travel expenses because we could be very efficient scheduling multiple calls while going to that area. The same type and volume of work widely scattered around the country may require a higher flat rate with a proportionally higher threshold of absorbed travel expenses. Our goal is to work with you to find an appropriate flat fee and expense threshhold that is satisfactory to both of us. This is a plan that was actually developed by one of our clients for a national specialty program. We agreed to try it when we first started as the loss control partner in their program. We've been at it for several years now and we both find it exceptionally easy to administer and very fair to both our companies. The arrangement has freed us to focus our time and effort on supporting the program, not tracking and billing everything we do. Furthermore, the amount of time spent on-site, face-to-face with the insured, is a function of what's needed, not what someone is willing to pay. We get focused on doing the job, not worrying about how long we are there. The charge to our client is the same whether it takes us 2 hours or 6 hours (or more) to get the job done well for the insured.

Program Safety & Health Newsletters

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$750 to $1500 per issue, depending on length and frequency, plus one time initial masthead design, set-up charges, and printing costs.

Services:

Generally, we only do newsletters for niche and specialty programs with which we can develop an understanding of both the newsletter audience and the nature of the subjects the newsletter should address. Typically, we write all the articles or encourage others involved in the program to do so, resulting in a newsletter that has all original content written specifically for the program participants.

We can do the entire process including initial design and layout, preparation of articles for each issue, manage the printing, and even handle the distribution (provided our client keeps the mailing database fully up-to-date).

The newsletter pictured here is prepared and published quarterly for an existing client's program. It typically has three articles per issue (depending on the length of each article) and is published a section of our Web site. Web publishing keeps the annual cost to our client to about $4000. Web publishing provides more timely distribution, easier use of graphics and photos (something that gets expensive in hard copy), and the ability to archive past issues so new insureds joining the program can access past articles of interest – all significant improvements over hard copy for less cost.

We can make developing a custom, regularly published newsletter for your program painless and very simple whether you choose hard copy or Web site publishing. If you choose Web site publishing and you do not have your own site, we can use a section of our site, just as we have done for the example mentioned above. Talk to us.

By the way, here's how that newsletter pictured above now looks published elsewhere in this site. (It is password protected so only our client's policyholders can get at it.)

Executive Seminars And Other Training Sessions

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$1000 per session (typically) for executive sessions up to 18 participants

$650 per session (typically) for supervisory people or for other one-time training session without manuals, etc.

Services:

Executive sessions are prepared around customized themes/subjects of significant interest to the invited executives from the companies insured in the Program. These are specifically planned as discussion-oriented sessions, not "talk-to" sessions. The typical invitation-style seminar consists of 3 topic sessions covered over a day and a half and costs $3000 plus travel and any extraordinary expenses. The rate includes preparation of the customized topics, all the appropriate materials (as illustrated at left), and the actual conducting of the sessions.

Executive seminars are a very attractive service offering for customers in a specialty program. It gives the executives from your insured businesses an opportunity to meet your people, the people who manage the program, while also giving them opportunity to discuss significant and important management issues tailored to their business and industry. We are very good at every aspect of these sessions, from creating and presenting/leading topics to the logistics of establishing and arranging an attractive venue.

We also do individual, single topic sessions, usually for a group of managers from the same company or a very local group of invited insured business, and typically lasting only a half day. We still prepare all the items illustrated above and the cost, including all the research and development of the subject, is $1000 per session for up to 18 people plus travel and extraordinary expenses.

Sometimes executives are so impressed with the value of a session that they ask to have the same topic presented to the rest of their management team or their supervisors. For such sessions, also customized as necessary, we prepare pocket folders with appropriate hand-out or supplemental materials, name tags and table tents. For these sessions we typically charge $650 per session, plus travel and extraordinary expenses.

Frankly, seminars and training sessions are our most fun service, and we are very good at doing them. The costs shown above are typical charges but not fixed. We are willing to discuss approach, timing, materials, and ultimately charges for any such session. There are too many variables in doing these to have hard, fixed prices, plus we want to please our clients and do what's best for the program or the insured, so we'll talk it over with you before we set prices.

	Speaker and Mini-workshop Sessions	Back To Top
	$450 for up to 2 hours speaking or conducting mini-workshops on established material/existing topics. $650 up to two hours conducting mini-workshops or seminars on topics which must be prepared or customized.
	Services:
	We do public speaking for civic and association groups, especially trade groups at meetings and conventions. Generally these sessions require far less preparation than training or seminar sessions and they are largely one-way on topics of interest, particularly topics on managing human resources and occupational safety and health (although we have many topics we can speak on with great enthusiasm). However, unless the group is just too large to engage personally, we typically get our audience directly engaged one way or another, so there isn't much difference between what we call a mini-workshop and a speech. In fact, the term "mini-workshop" was coined for us by one of our customers who watched us do what was billed as a speaker/speech presentation. Actually, for smaller more intimate groups, we add a few handouts and even some hands-on workshop examples which give more significance to the term "mini-workshop." Subjects are so widely diverse we would have to discuss your specific interests to give you ideas, but we have "spoken" on things such as what employee performance evaluations are all about (clue: they aren't to tell the employee how he/she is doing...) to how to make your company a hard target for workers' compensation abuse. Talk to us. We have topics and we have very good (excellent, even) presentation skills.

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