Do a self-evaluation before completing your application! Prior to completing the Management Attestation Form portion of the application process, carefully review the best practices required for certification to identify any that your PEO is not currently doing or that may need improvement. Once you have identified best practices that are missing or need improvement, simply make the changes needed and include documentation of these with your application. Then complete your Management Attestation Form. If you have already submitted your Attestation form and want to make some changes after completing this self-evaluation, just contact CI and we will make the Attestation form available for your revision. If you have any questions about what is required, just e-mail Info@CertificationInstitute.com or call 501.975.3099.
Specific steps for conducting this self-evaluation include the following:
Print a copy of Table 3 (Section II.A. on page 9 of the Program Manual), and assemble all of the written information outlined in the table that is used by your PEO. You can access the Program Manual by clicking the above "Certification Requirements" navigation button.
Print a copy of the Industry Best Practices accessible by clicking on the above "Industry Best Practices" navigation button.
Review each of your PEO's written documents outlined in Table 3 to see if they appropriately include each required element of the Best Practices. If not, you should make the required improvements to your PEO's written procedures and submit the updated documents with your application, along with your written commitment to implement the new procedures on a going forward basis.
If you are a NAPEO member, you can access prototype documents that meet certification requirements on NAPEO's website in the Members Only section. NAPEO is making these documents available as an additional member benefit at no extra cost. You can easily customize the documents to fit your PEO's specific operations. Available documents include:
Business Plan (only elements required for risk management certification are included)
Client Service Agreement (only elements required for risk management certification are included)
Client Risk Assessment Procedures
Loss Prevention Procedures
Claims Management Procedures
WC insurance carriers want to see evidence that your PEO is actually doing what you say that you are doing! This means that you need your PEO's operational policies and procedures related to WC risk management documented in writing. These procedures should identify "what, why, who, how and when." Without written procedures accompanied by some form of reporting and management review of results, it is highly unlikely that risk management best practices are being implemented consistently in an appropriate manner. Insurance carriers know this from experience and have asked that the certification process include verification that written risk management procedures, including appropriate reporting and review, are in place and are in fact being implemented. Take a few days and fill in any documentation deficiencies that you can identify in your PEO's program before you apply. But if you have any questions about what is needed, please contact the certification program staff for assistance. This assistance is available as part of the certification process.
Be sure that every client has a written loss prevention service plan! A written loss prevention service plan is essential to ensure that WC risk management best practices are consistently and effectively implemented as appropriate for each client's risk exposures and loss experience. These plans provide the road map for your PEO's loss prevention program. Such plans are normally developed when each new client is added based on an evaluation of the worksite risk exposures and analysis of prior WC claims history. For existing clients, the plans should be updated as needed based on regular reviews of claims reports plus site visits by an experienced risk manager where warranted. For clients with low risk exposures and good loss experience the "plan" may be as simple as a memo to the file indicating that "based on a risk assessment conducted on (date), no special loss prevention action is required at this time." For clients with significant risk exposures or significant losses, the plan should describe the exposures, outline the plan of action to manage these exposures along with a description of the key actions to be performed by the PEO and client and the frequency and method by which your risk manager or contract service provider will monitor plan implementation. If your PEO does not have loss prevention service plans for all clients available for use by your risk management staff or contract service provider, you must develop such plans as a condition of certification. See the prototype Loss Prevention Procedures on NAPEO's Members Only site (mentioned above), for assistance with this important risk management best practice.
Contact your payroll software vendor to assist in producing the confidentially-coded client report required for certification The report should list specified WC-related information by client ID numbers that you and your WC carrier can use to identify specific clients. To help protect your confidential client information, CI does not need or accept client lists with names or other contact information. All software vendors that are associate members of NAPEO have been provided with the required format for this report and have been asked to make the upgrade available as a standard feature to all subscribers. The vendors that we have talked with indicated that incorporating this report as a standard feature would require less than an hour of programming. This will save your PEO a lot of time since this report will be required as part of ongoing certification monitoring program. If you or your payroll software vendor needs assistance with this report, contact Info@CertificationInstitute.com or call 501.975.3099.
Becoming certified is not a "yes or no" proposition! Almost all PEOs
will need to make some improvements in their risk management program. Unless
you tell them, no one outside your PEO and the CI program staff, will know
that you have applied for certification until after you are approved. Any PEO
can become certified if it is willing to work with the CI program staff to
identify and implement the required improvements. The program staff will not
submit your application to the Certification Committee until they have worked
with you sufficiently to ensure that your PEO will be approved. So don't be
hesitant to get started as soon as possible!
