Washington State Department of Labor & Industries

IAIABC: Please provide an organizational overview (number of employees, years in business, vision)

Brenda Heilman, Assistant Director for Insurance Services, Washington State Department of Labor & Industries:

Washington is one of four states that have an exclusive State Fund workers’ compensation program. Labor & Industries (L&I) administers our workers’ compensation program through our Insurance Services division, which covers about 2.8 million workers and more than 201,000 employers. We also regulate about 350 large, self-insured employers who have qualified to provide their own workers’ compensation insurance. With more than 3,000 employees in 19 offices around the state, L&I also oversees workplace safety and health requirements, enforces wage and hour laws, and has a number of programs that promote workplace standards.

L&I’s Mission & Core Values include:

• Mission: Keep Washington Safe and Working
• Core Values: Customer Focus, One L&I, Respect, Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, Learning and Growth, and Reliability
  
  

IAIABC: How does your organization serve the workers’ compensation industry? 

BH: L&I is one of the largest workers’ compensation insurers in the nation and demonstrates the benefits of the public sector model. We are able to focus on a couple of shared goals with business and labor – helping workers heal and return to work and providing consistent services to workers. We also have extensive data on our entire workers’ compensation system, which allows us to understand and test new approaches. Because of our exclusive model, we have low underwriting costs and can leverage other public sector resources such as occupational safety and health, medical and health research, and the state investment board.

IAIABC: What do you see as some of the major challenges the industry is facing, and how can we as a community address them? 

BH: There are a variety of challenges, and I’ll touch on just a few that come to mind. Washington is expanding coverage for work-related mental health conditions such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). We need to define standards of care and test new practices to help these workers return to work. There’s also a legislative desire to extend workplace protections for gig economy and non-traditional workers. We need to consider variations in coverage that may improve working conditions without undermining the flexibility that many gig workers value. 

We continue to see post-pandemic medical access challenges and health care changes resulting from mergers and investment by private equity firms. We need to consider new provider types, reduce the administrative burden of providers working with workers’ compensation insurance, and leverage new extractive technology to save providers time and effort.

With ongoing legislative and regulatory changes in a polarized political environment, we need to have data and information ready to tell a compelling story when new legislation is considered.

IAIABC: Are there any projects/programs/initiatives going on at your organization that you are particularly excited or enthusiastic about?

BH: Yes, and I always enjoy talking about the ways we’re improving outcomes for injured workers, employers, and providers in our state. We have an exciting new incentive that provides funding for skill enhancement training for injured workers to build labor market skills. We’re also promoting good light duty jobs through enhanced incentives, easier processes, dispute resolution, and improvements based on worker feedback.

We have been working for over a year with external parties to develop standards for PTSD coverage and promoting workplace practices to better support all workers routinely exposed to traumatic events. And we’re making it easier to do business with us.

IAIABC: What's an interesting fact about your organization that most people don't know?

BH: The mission of the Insurance Services division at L&I is to help workers heal and return to work. Over the past five years, L&I referred almost 40,000 workers for vocational services. About 29,000 of those referrals have closed with almost half of those workers returning to work. Other referrals closed because the worker was found able to work or we referred them for retraining.

We are also the only state in the nation that combines workplace safety with being the exclusive provider of workers’ compensation insurance. This allows us to use our data to focus on both preventing injuries as well as helping injured workers heal and return to work. 

IAIABC: Why is your organization a member of the IAIABC? What would you tell others about the benefits of membership?

BH: Washington has had an exclusive State Fund for many years, and it’s easy to become a little too insular and focused on our own operations. So it’s important for us to learn from other jurisdictions. IAIABC provides a forum for us to interact with a broad range of insurers and regulators in order to engage in a vibrant exchange of ideas.