I'm putting forward a proposal for my bosses at the moment for what insurers call "risk management funding". Essentially this is a return of a % of your annual Employer's Liability insurance premium in return for proof that you have carried out improvements to yours and your insurers mutual benefit. In this instance, I'm looking at formal H&S qualifications.

I'm looking particularly at NEBOSH Certs in all their variations. Typical costs seem to be £1-2k depending on study method and geographical location. A well trained certificate holder has the potential to be an influencer within their organisation, upwards and downwards.

Funding towards level 6 diplomas is being exluded from my deliberations at present. A level 3 cert is generally accepted as the standard for someone working in house, level 6 for external consultants. I know some industries will want to see diploma as a minimum but stick with the level 3 for now.

So, if your insurer said you can have
£2500 or
50% of the course cost or
5% of your premium

WHICHEVER IS THE LOWER

Towards training somebody up with a level 3 NEBOSH cert, would you use it?
Our premium range is £5000 to £150,000 so the minimum contribution is £250, the max £2500.
Proof of an exam pass and current wage slip (to prevent abuse) would be needed before a payment was made.

The money criteria is an early guestimate only. People who are far better at maths and excel spreadsheets would decide the payout criteria but it would broadly follow that sort of pattern.

So, would you use such a scheme, if so what for (additional certs for yourself or train additional staff) and do you think you could abuse it easily?*

* - Hey, it's an insurer, we like to try and prevent fraud.

Would love to hear your thoughts.

Stevie40, this sounds like a good initiative but rather prescriptive in my view. The idea of insurers offering a cash incentive to make SMS improvements certainly makes good sense and is already practised by some.
Maybe the choice of where to spend the money could be widened to include not only training and education but also medical services eg audiometry, research eg alternative substances, capital expenditure eg upgraded LEV, workforce campaigns eg stress-busting etc.
The aim of increasing in-house educational levels is good and I wish you good luck in persuading the bean counters.

DP, it was my understanding that Stevie is working for an insurer and seeking opinions on whether this would be well received as an insurer incentive.
Stevie, please will you clarify.

Apologies gents – my mistake.

So would I be correct is thinking you have organisations on your books who pay up to 150 k for EL without a in house safety manager– for that one policy I guessing that’s a sizable company or smaller one taking on a ground up policy.

Or do these company’s currently rely on consultants. Just trying to establish what size of company before I comment.

DP - the premium range is £5k to £150k. This encompasses small firms in construction / contracting through to large manufacturing / specialist construction / demolition.

A typical scenario I would envisage is a firm with a single H&S manager covering multiple sites. We contribute towards training up an assistant to take on some of the duties.

Another might be a smaller contractor paying out £3-4k per annum to a consultant. They could train up somebody in house and have the consultant acting as a reference point for when the in house person's competency is exceeded.

I want it to be available to all policyholders - not just those that are doing good deeds already.

Stuff - the problems of staff retention will always be with us but companies have to invest in the training and if our funding helps them to take the plunge then I would see that as a result.

Everyone can ignore what their in-house or external consultant tells them to do at the end of the day. I just feel an in-house person has a greater knowledge of the "shortcuts" used when the consultant isn't looking and also has a greater chance of influencing people from within as they have daily contact with those people.

DP - By working in the market that we do, we have the benefit of preaching to the converted in a lot of cases. Most of our clients have seen the financial benefits of managing H&S - they don't get on a site without something in place.

Many of our clients work on airports, major construction projects, pipelines, off shore installations and the like. I would say that most of them have an appetite to improve their H&S management.

I'm not envisaging automatic premium reductions if somebody takes us up on the training offer. The market in Lloyd's does not work like that and as you've indicated, we would need to set KPIs to monitor the effectiveness.

It will simply be a case of "Dear Policyholder, you've given us £25k or whatever to underwrite your legal liabilities. Would you like up to 5% of that back to train staff in managing those liabilities?"

The catch is, the money will only ever fund 50% of the training cost at most, possibly less - so you'll have to dip in your own pocket. Oh, and not looking to contribute towards accomodation and meal costs on residential courses.