Competing baseball teams collaborate on risk management

While rival sports organisations compete fiercely on the field, they can work together effectively to battle risk management concerns they have in common, three baseball risk managers said. And the data-heavy analysis that clubs use to optimise players’ performance extends into other areas of their operations and is used to help reduce workers compensation claims and other potential liabilities, they added during a session of Chicagoland Risk Forum, sponsored by US risk management association Rims. “On the field everyone’s super competitive in the league, but off the field there are things you can learn from each other and share,” said Anthony Avitabile, director of industry risk management for Major League Baseball (MLB). MLB has a group insurance programme in place covering all the clubs and their affiliates for most lines of coverage, including workers comp, general liability and property. In addition, the programme includes a Vermont-based captive. One initiative that MLB put together was the league’s Workers Compensation Quality Council, where best practices are shared, Avitabile said. Clubs also collaborate and hold conference calls on safety, said Darius Anderson, manager – risk management for the Milwaukee Brewers. In recent years, one of the main issues of concern has been heat awareness for ballpark employees and fans, he said. “Those calls are really, really helpful to share best practices and stay ahead of the curve,” Anderson said. Information is also shared informally between risk managers in the sector, he said. “Sometimes you’re like an island right within your organisation, so I need to pick up the phone and call another club,” Anderson said. Discussions often center around particular workers comp claims or mitigation strategies. Similar to their on-field activities, clubs access significant amounts of data for risk management purposes. “Data has been very important to the Milwaukee Brewers in terms of assessing our potential claims or near misses,” Anderson said. However, other factors also should be considered, he said. “You can get lost in data real fast and kind of lose touch with some of the personal side of things. Especially the workers comp side, I always tell our club trainers ‘Take care of the player first, figure out the rest later’,” said Dino Stiris, manager of risk management for the Chicago Cubs. Focusing on overall workers comp results can sometimes lead to decisions that are not in the interests of injured individuals, he added. “If you get into the data, you can really just steer in a direction that is not a positive for the associate because you’re just so focused on ‘we need to get here’,” he said. Medical science can also be useful for risk mitigation, Stiris said. For example, identifying a player with a weak shoulder can help trainers mitigate the issue by building up the player’s muscle before an injury occurs, he said. “It’s helped us in many situations, especially with pitchers,” Stiris said. Clubs also can collaborate on risk management issues unrelated to their core operations, said Anderson. For example, this summer the singer P!nk held a concert at the Milwaukee ballpark, which included a host of risk management and liability issues that the club did not often encounter, such as concertgoers on the field and liability for stagehands. “I picked up the phone and called Dino on that case, because P!nk was also at Wrigley Field, just to understand what they experienced from a risk standpoint,” said Anderson. This article first appeared on our sister website Business Insurance. For further news from Business Insurance, please click here.

Competing baseball teams collaborate on risk management

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