A.I.M. Mutual is a workers' compensation insurance carrier based in Burlington, Massachusetts, and Dan Landers is President and Chief Executive Officer. I'm John Weber for Best Review Magazine, and I'm speaking today with Dan about the state of this line, how the customer experience is changing and what the future may hold. Dan, welcome. Good to see you today.

So you became president, CEO in the spring of 2022 when the business community was struggling with a host of issues from supply chain to rebuilding the workforce. Big impact on workers' compensation, I imagine. Can you compare then and now?

Sure. It certainly was a time of transition, significant disruption in our industry in many different areas: the number of claims, the type of claims. Payrolls and businesses were up and down. So we just really, focused on our core values and and really tried to be as effective and efficient through this period of crisis management so we could continue to provide the service excellence that we have had the success with for years. I will tell you one of the toughest things was to come out of the crisis management mindset, to really get back to what we were doing while still using some of the new and innovative things that we did learn through that time.

I understand A.I.M. Mutual is a monoline carrier with a New England focus. What are the benefits, would you say, of specialization and do your broker partners value that?

So, our specialization I look at in a twofold manner: We're regional, so we specialize in the New England area. So we've become experts in that geographic region when it comes to medical providers and legislative issues and so on. In addition, being a specialist in workers' comp allows us to really partner with our brokers to make sure that we can be successful, even under the most adverse circumstances with tougher risks and difficult situations where some of the more generalist companies may not feel as comfortable. We really hit home runs there.

2024 is right around the corner. What are you seeing in terms of claims, trends, frequency and severity in particular? And is there cause for concern?

Workers' comp has seen frequency reduction for many, many years. We see the same. We see that continuing. At the same time, severity has been on the uptick in recent years, and we're a microcosm of that. We're seeing a little bit more of that as well. We try to control that with our innovative A.I.M. Vantage program. We've really invested in our medical specialist network as well as our in-house nurse case managers to really take those most difficult cases and provide the best care we can to get better outcomes.

Let's turn to technology, innovation and what people expect today from an insurance provider. How is the customer experience evolving and what makes workers' compensation unique?

Yeah, great topic, John. Ease of doing business is really the way things are now. That's what our society's like and certainly what our industry is like. Technology is a big piece of that, and we've invested in that to really enhance our customer portals and our quoting process and claims reporting and everything else. One thing we really have at the forefront of our effort is the security aspect of all the cyber experiences. You know, people may not think that's important until there's a problem, but we heavily invest in that and are committed to doing everything we can to keep everybody's information private the way it should be, which is the biggest difference with workers' comp. We deal with people, we're not dealing with property or objects or anything like that. So it's of paramount importance for us. 

Finally, what are your priorities for A.I.M. Mutual going forward?

Always the right time of year for that, John. You know, we begin and end with our people and that's a priority. It's more of a value. It doesn't change. We have tried to provide our folks with the tools and the environment and our commitment as a company to allow them to do their job to the best of their ability and continue that partnership with our brokers, with our policy holders, and to take the best care of the injured workers, which is our commitment to them. That's in general our plan for 2024. There are a lot of pieces underneath it, but that's where we're going to be.

Dan, best of luck. Great to speak with you today.

Thanks very much, John. It's been a pleasure.

That was Dan Landers, president and Chief Executive Officer of A.I.M. Mutual in Burlington, Massachusetts. And I'm John Weber for Best Review Magazine.