Post-Covid Attitudes

Post-pandemic attitudes will negatively affect insurance claims, making it harder to get a claimant motivated to return to work. It is an unforeseen consequence of the Covid protocols that seemed prudent at the time. The pandemic necessitated that the U.S. workforces disperse office employees and create the ability to work from home (WFH). According to a?Gallop poll, almost 50% still do. As a result, those organizations have had little to no face-to-face contact amongst co-workers or associates for two years. Surveys conducted during the pandemic found a level of anxiety amongst people working from home. Many workers said they were too angst-ridden to return to an office environment. However, this is the same workforce that just worked from home for the last 24 months, indicating that working from home isn't a panacea for anxieties. Working from home contributed to the high level of anxiety about work. When everyone was fully engaged, albeit in the social environments of congested workspaces, polls didn't find it necessary to question the mental health of office workers. At the time, employees invested in making a living. Workers don't realize that the cause of some of their WFH anxiety is from missing out on the affirmation of co-workers and the lost sense of community. Other activities increased to replace the missing social connections people previously shared through employment. Volunteering at non-profits, coaching youth teams, joining town leagues, attending religious functions, providing care for children, the elderly, and pets all?supplanted the employer?in the importance of WFH employees' lives. The thought of giving these things up now causes anxieties amongst the workforce because these substituted connections became their current tribe,?replacing their identification with work?that disappeared two years ago. If an insurance claim can prolong this lifestyle, it is apt to be used to full advantage.

The isolation of the last two years has created a zeitgeist of self-care over group-maintenance. Some WFH employees haven't had any co-workers for direct social interactions; therefore, the office's influences, needs, and expectations hold little sway. A person with an injury who WFH will not feel an urgency to return to work because it won't offer any immediate improvements to their lifestyle. If they were working from home when injured, returning to work would not even change the scenery.??

The people whose careers did not allow them to WFH; the drivers, distributors, servers, mechanics, technicians, manufacturers, medical, public servants et al., who become injured find themselves suddenly at home with the other half of the country.?

The non-WFH claimants might consider it is now their turn to be at home.?

To solve this impending problem:

1. Look at ways to innovate and manage the claims process in the new post-pandemic world.
2. Recognize and accept that many old approaches will no longer be relevant.
3. Create adaptive claims processes unfettered from old metrics.
4. Enact fraud measures to counter the sense of entitlement to insurance benefits.?
5. Utilize better analytical tools and reengineer for dynamic capabilities.

Donal P. Anderson is the President of?Defense Investigators Group, Inc., a national firm specializing in defense of claims against companies, municipalities, state agencies, and the federal government.