We fully understand how claims increase premiums and how vital it is to properly monitor all claims and their impact on the bottom line. Workers’ compensation and liability claims costs include the amount actually paid as well as an estimate of what will be paid on pending open claims, or any claims not yet closed through settlement or litigation. The estimate, made by an adjuster, is called a case reserve. The total amount of the reserve is included in incurred losses, which is a combination of paid claims and case reserves. Incurred losses are given to competing insurers who quote on this type of business. They calculate workers’ compensation experience rating mods, which are used to calculate premiums under standard retrospective rating plans. Estimated case reserves have a significant effect on your premiums and any over-reserving by an insurer will deliver undeserved and often unrecoverable premium increases. Premium costs can be controlled through the monitoring of and negotiating reserves. DIB will conduct periodic loss reports for all lines of active coverage. This information is invaluable in analyzing safety and risk-control programs, in verifying the accuracy of experience and retrospective-rating calculations as well as obtaining quotations from competing insurance companies.