2026 TLC Conference

Freight Claims in Focus: Key Takeaways from the 2026 Transportation & Logistics Council Conference

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The Transportation & Logistics Council’s 2026 Annual Conference brought together professionals from across the shipping ecosystem. Carriers, shippers, brokers, claims professionals and legal experts all came to examine the evolving risks facing freight transportation.

While this was only our second time at the event, we were warmly received as another member of the TLC family. The same TLC leaders that suggested this event to us three years ago still recall our initial interaction. Besides the hospitality, we greatly appreciate this event since its single track (you don’t miss anything) enables you to experience the same presentation as the other just under 200 participants. For APP Tech, the conference provided a valuable opportunity to listen, learn and engage in conversations about one of the industry’s most persistent challenges: freight claims.

Several sessions highlighted the growing complexity of freight claims, from cargo theft and fraud to regulatory oversight and compliance. But one theme stood out across nearly every discussion: the organizations best positioned to manage freight claims effectively are those that capture better data at the moment incidents occur.

Here were our favorite sessions:

Freight Claims – The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

As a company committed to staying ahead of transportation and logistics industry trends, the APP Tech team was eager to attend this session that was moderated by Carla Bay Rumford, CCP, CTB, Senior Operations Support Manager at BM2 Freight and current Council Secretary for TLC. The session tackled cargo claims through a memorable lens: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly.

The Good: The Carmack Amendment (49 US Code 14706)

First enacted in 1906, the Carmack Amendment brought much-needed consistency to a fragmented landscape of conflicting state laws and its fundamentals remain essential knowledge for anyone in the industry today.

Christine Gramse, CCP, Transportation and Audit Specialist at Land O’Lakes, walked attendees through the three core elements of a carrier claim:

  1. The shipment was tendered in good condition
  2. A loss was identified — whether short, damaged, or unreasonably late
  3. The value of the damage is established

Cristine also shared best practices for claim documentation and photography, emphasizing the importance of tracking exceptions on proof of delivery. She flagged a critical item to keep on your checklist: those same exceptions on handheld devices can sometimes disappear — making it all the more important to capture and preserve them promptly.

The Bad: Carrier Denials

Jessica Renner, CCP, Manager of Cargo Claims and Risk at Jarrett Logistics, guided attendees through the most common carrier denial scenarios — and how to fight back.

Jessica covered the documentation shippers and brokers/3PLs should have ready when disputing a denial, including:

  • Bill of lading and other standard supporting documents
  • Detailed photos showing damage to packing materials and load securement

She also outlined options to consider if a denial persists, giving attendees a practical game plan for navigating even the most stubborn disputes.

One memorable example: a carrier denied a claim on a damaged custom guitar case, arguing that the case had done its job by protecting the guitar inside. It was a clear illustration of the grey areas that can arise and why thorough documentation is non-negotiable.

The Ugly: Fraud & Theft

Fraud and theft continue to be a serious and growing problem in the industry. Deena Walechka, CCP, Claims Specialist II at FedEx Custom Critical, made a compelling case for treating every suspicious claim with the rigor of a forensic investigation.

Deena covered:

  • What forensic analysis involves and how it helps determine liability
  • How to engage all parties as partners to foster a collaborative, prevention-focused approach
  • What a strong investigation response looks like, from first notice through resolution

Perhaps her most valuable takeaway: trust your gut. When all the facts aren’t yet on the table, instinct still matters.

 

Strategic Cargo Theft & Fraud 2.0: Adapting to the Next Generation of Supply Chain Threats

Cargo theft is evolving and so must the industry’s response to it. This panel brought together four subject matter experts from distinctly different corners of the supply chain, yet their message was remarkably unified.

The panel featured:

Despite their varied backgrounds, the panelists aligned on four core themes: police communication, law enforcement coordination, internal procedures, and the newly introduced CORCA Bill (Combating Organized Retail Crime Act of 2025). Here is what we learned:

  • Communicate clearly with law enforcement: When a theft occurs, having the facts organized and a recovery plan ready before you make that call is critical. One particularly practical tip came from Detective Matt Wise: when contacting police, use the phrase “theft in progress” when the situation warrants it. Those three words signal urgency and are far more likely to mobilize an immediate response than a standard report.
  • Build and practice internal procedures: Having documented procedures is a starting point, but it’s not enough. The entire panel stressed that vigilance needs to be a habit, not just a policy on paper. Danielle Spinelli took it a step further, recommending that teams not only maintain a response checklist, but actively run through mock theft scenarios. Practicing the plan before a real incident means your team can execute quickly and confidently when it counts.
  • The CORCA Bill is promising, but won’t solve everything: The panel welcomed the federal attention that the Combating Organized Retail Crime Act of 2025 brings to cargo theft. The bill is designed to invite greater coordination among federal, state, and local agencies, which has long been a gap in the fight against organized theft rings. That said, all four panelists were equally clear-eyed about its limitations. The bill’s effectiveness will ultimately depend on the quality and consistency of communication between the agencies involved.

 

Luncheon Briefing: Three Things You Can Do Right Now

Sometimes the most impactful advice is the most actionable. During Tuesday’s luncheon, Chris Matthews, Founder & CEO of OpSec Intel, delivered exactly that which included three concise, no-cost recommendations that any company can put into practice immediately.

Chris knows the scope of the theft and fraud problem facing the supply chain. Rather than adding to the weight of it, he came to lunch with a different goal: send everyone home with something useful.

  1. Assign an Owner: If fighting fraud is everyone’s job, it’s effectively no one’s job. Chris made the case for designating a centralized owner of fraud prevention within your organization. Having a dedicated point of accountability creates space for the kind of scrutiny that gets overlooked when everyone is focused on moving freight. Good habits are far more likely to take root when someone is specifically responsible for them.
  2. Verify Phone Numbers: This one is simple, low-effort, and surprisingly underused. Fraudsters have a hard time using someone else’s real phone number. If you’re not already calling back numbers provided by carriers, brokers, or drivers to confirm they’re actually associated with the person in question, you should start now. It’s a quick step that can expose bad actors before a load ever leaves the dock.
  3. Speed Is Your Standard Operating Procedure: When a potential theft is unfolding, response time is everything. Chris stressed that law enforcement is ready to receive and act on information quickly, but only if you’re ready to provide it. Personal identifiers, vehicle information, and load details should be organized and accessible at all times so that when you make that call, you can hand over exactly what’s needed without delay. Making this a standard part of your procedures, rather than something you scramble to pull together in the moment, can make a meaningful difference in recovery outcomes.

 

Key Takeaway: Freight Claims Start With the Incident

While the sessions above were our favorites, the mock trial deserves an honorable mention. Watching both the defense and plaintiff teams build compelling cases from the same evidence while attendees followed along was a fun and pointed reminder of just how much knowing the law matters when a claim ends up in dispute. We hope to see it back next year.

Across sessions and conversations at the conference, one theme kept emerging: freight claims are fundamentally an information challenge. The difference between organizations that struggle with claims and those that manage them effectively often comes down to visibility and process. When incidents are captured early, documentation is centralized and claims data is accessible, organizations can move from reactive claims handling to proactive risk management.

That shift is where modern claims technology can make a meaningful difference.

Solutions like Cloud Claims support an incident-based approach to claims management, allowing organizations to capture incidents in real time, attach documentation immediately and maintain a single source of truth throughout the claims lifecycle. That clarity benefits everyone involved in the claims process from operations teams to risk managers and even legal teams for a more efficient, unified system.

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Effects of social inflation and nuclear verdicts on insurance

Social Inflation and Nuclear Verdicts: Navigating Soaring Liability Exposure

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If it feels like liability exposure has become harder to predict and a lot more expensive to manage, you’re not imagining it.

Nuclear verdicts are climbing, social inflation is pushing claim severity higher, and for organizations in trucking, retail, construction, and industrial operations, the financial fallout is becoming difficult to ignore.

You’re seeing it in escalating umbrella and excess premiums, steeper self-insured retentions, and far more aggressive underwriting scrutiny. Risk and claims teams are fielding harder questions, and leadership wants clearer answers about where the exposure sits and what’s being done about it.

The unfortunate reality is you can’t control how a jury thinks, and you can’t single-handedly reverse the broader forces behind social inflation. But you absolutely can control how prepared your organization is the moment an incident happens. In today’s environment, that preparation is what separates organizations that weather these storms from those that get swept up.

 

The Liability Landscape Is Shifting

Two interconnected forces are reshaping the insurance market: social inflation and nuclear verdicts. They feed off each other, and together they’re changing how risk is evaluated and priced across entire industries.

Social inflation refers to the growing cost of claims driven by more than economic inflation alone. That includes shifting jury attitudes, broadened views of corporate responsibility, increasingly sophisticated plaintiff tactics, and the rise of third-party litigation funding that makes it financially viable for cases to go further and last longer. The lines of business hit hardest include commercial auto (especially trucking), professional liability, product liability, and directors and officers coverage.

Nuclear verdicts, typically defined as jury awards exceeding $10 million, are one of the clearest signals of this shift. According to Marathon Strategies’ 2025 report, nuclear verdicts rose 52% in 2024 — 135 cases totaling $31.3 billion. The median verdict climbed to $51 million from $44 million in 2023, and “thermonuclear” verdicts exceeding $100 million surged by over 80%, with five crossing the $1 billion threshold.

These nuclear jury verdicts go beyond individual cases, they’re reshaping expectations across entire industries. In trucking, a single commercial auto accident can evolve into a broader courtroom argument about companywide safety culture. In retail, a premises liability claim can turn into scrutiny of inspection procedures. In construction and industrial operations, workplace injuries escalate quickly when oversight or compliance gaps come to light.

The effects are operational as much as legal, because rising verdicts directly influence underwriting decisions, retention strategies, and long-term cost structures.

 

What Are Nuclear Verdicts in Insurance?

While the $10 million threshold is the standard definition, nuclear verdicts in insurance carry significance well beyond their dollar amount. They most commonly arise from catastrophic injuries, wrongful death claims, or cases where plaintiffs argue systemic negligence, that the harm wasn’t an isolated event but the predictable outcome of broader failures.

In nuclear verdicts trucking cases, plaintiff attorneys frequently expand the narrative well beyond the driver involved, going after training programs, hiring practices, monitoring protocols, and internal controls. The argument becomes: this company knew, or should have known, that something like this would happen. That broader story resonates powerfully with juries already skeptical of large corporations.

Even organizations that take safety seriously can find themselves exposed if their incident documentation is inconsistent, incomplete, or delayed. A single poorly handled event can become the centerpiece of a much larger argument in court. And the fallout extends beyond any one case: once a large award is handed down, it resets settlement expectations across the industry and reinforces the cycle of social inflation.

 

Social Inflation: Why Claims Keep Getting More Expensive

Social inflation insurance pressure doesn’t come from any single source. It’s a convergence of forces that compound one another.

Legal definitions of negligence have broadened, jurors are more skeptical of corporations than they’ve been in decades (a recent Pew Research survey found that 71% of Americans believe corporations negatively affect the country’s direction), and third-party litigation funding has grown into a multi-billion-dollar industry that removes the financial barriers once discouraging prolonged trials. Plaintiff tactics like reptile theory compound the problem by framing every case as a community safety issue rather than an individual dispute, bypassing analytical reasoning to appeal directly to emotion. Meanwhile, medical and repair costs continue climbing.

Social inflation and nuclear verdicts reinforce one another in a cycle that’s hard to break. Larger awards reset the floor for future settlements, carriers respond by tightening terms and increasing rates, self-insured businesses absorb more risk, and the rising tide of litigation funding means more cases go the distance rather than settling early.

Milliman’s 2024 analysis of the nation’s top 40 commercial auto liability writers illustrates how deep the problem runs. Social inflation and third-party litigation funding continue to push severity upward, and the countrywide calendar year loss ratio climbed to approximately 86% in 2024, the highest in five years. Average approved rate increases have exceeded 5% annually for the past decade, with 2023 and 2024 seeing double-digit hikes, yet loss ratios have continued to rise. As Milliman notes, several large insurers have begun significantly reducing their commercial auto exposure or exiting higher-risk sectors entirely.

When severity trends upward like this, precision in your claims management isn’t a nice-to-have. It’s essential.

 

The Insurance Impact: Premium Pressure and Retention Risk

The market response has been swift. Umbrella and excess rates have climbed significantly while capacity in high-risk industries has tightened, deductibles and self-insured retentions have risen, and underwriters are looking more carefully than ever at how you manage losses, not just your loss history.

Insurers want to know how you handle claims, how quickly incidents are reported, how consistent your documentation is, and whether you can demonstrate trend monitoring and corrective action. For commercial auto, carriers have reported combined loss ratios above 100% for 12 of the past 13 years, according to Millman, and several major insurers have responded by reducing exposures or exiting high-risk sectors entirely.

Operational discipline now plays a direct role in underwriting outcomes, and the organizations that can demonstrate structured, consistent claims management backed by data are the ones getting better terms.

 

Why Reactive Claims Management Is No Longer Enough

In an environment shaped by social inflation and nuclear verdicts, waiting for a claim to develop before responding creates unnecessary exposure at every stage.

Scattered information invites inconsistency. When incident details live across emails, spreadsheets, and disconnected systems, gaps creep in, and plaintiff attorneys are trained to find those gaps and frame them as negligence.

Delays compound risk. Evidence fades, witnesses become harder to locate, and the longer a claimant goes without engagement, the more likely they are to retain counsel. A manageable claim can escalate simply because the response wasn’t timely enough.

Documentation inconsistencies become ammunition. Conflicting notes or missing details can be reframed in court as evidence of negligence, and informal communication outside a structured system becomes discoverable and nearly impossible to contextualize in front of a jury.

Without trend visibility, patterns go unnoticed. A repeat issue at a specific location, involving a particular driver, or tied to a certain operational process may not surface until after a high-severity loss, at which point plaintiff counsel can argue the organization knew and failed to act.

The best defense against nuclear verdict exposure doesn’t begin in the courtroom. It begins the moment an incident is reported.

 

The Incident-Based Approach: Preventing Claims From Escalating

An incident-based approach to claims management means you’re not waiting for a claim to mature into a problem. Instead, you’re capturing structured, detailed information from the very first moment something happens: centralizing photos, witness statements, and investigative details in one place, creating a time-stamped and defensible record of every action taken, and enabling your risk, claims, and legal teams to collaborate from day one.

This aligns with what claims professionals increasingly recognize as a best practice. As Cavasinni and Jones wrote in CLM Magazine, early investigation is a discipline, not a reaction. When factual discovery, technical analysis, and documentation mapping happen in parallel from the start, organizations preserve their ability to control the narrative and position themselves for faster, more effective resolution. Waiting until a formal claim takes shape often means working backward through confusion, reconstructing context that should have been preserved from the start.

An incident-based approach also lets you identify trends early, before they evolve into the kind of catastrophic losses that end up in front of a jury. When you can spot a recurring problem at a specific location or a pattern tied to a particular process, you have the opportunity to correct the course proactively. That’s a story of organizational responsibility that plays well in any setting, including a courtroom.

The goal is to reduce the likelihood that claims ever escalate to trial, and when litigation does happen, to make sure you’re walking in with a defensible record. That’s exactly what Cloud Claims was built to support.

 

How Cloud Claims Supports Legal Defense and Underwriting Confidence

Cloud Claims gives risk and claims leaders the tools they need to operate with confidence, even amidst social inflation. From the first notice of an incident, it captures time-stamped, defensible documentation that stands up to scrutiny. Role-based access controls protect sensitive information, and configurable workflows ensure consistency across every location, team, and line of business.

Real-time dashboards provide visibility into claim development and severity trends as they unfold, letting you identify repeat loss locations, flag high-risk operational patterns, and monitor emerging litigation triggers before they compound. In a nutshell, when underwriters ask how you manage your claims, you have clear answers backed by data.

For organizations managing transportation exposure, including cargo operations, our cargo solutions are specifically designed to address those unique risks.

And for leadership, Cloud Claims provides something surprisingly rare in this space: a single, centralized source of truth. When the board wants visibility, when underwriters ask tough questions, or when legal counsel needs to build a defense, the information is already there.

That’s the difference between reacting to nuclear verdicts’ insurance pressure and navigating it with a plan.

 

Control What You Can Control

You can’t control jury sentiment, and you can’t single-handedly stop social inflation. But you can control how well your organization documents incidents, how fast you report them, how clearly you track trends, and how effectively your risk, claims, and legal teams work together.

In today’s liability environment, those operational controls are the foundation of defensibility, underwriting confidence, and long-term cost management.

 

From Exposure to Empowerment

Social inflation and nuclear verdicts reflect deeper, structural shifts in how liability is evaluated, argued, and priced. Verdicts are growing, spreading across more industries and jurisdictions, and the cost of defending against them is rising in tandem.

Organizations that treat claims management as a strategic function, not just an administrative necessity, are the ones best positioned to manage that shift. An incident-based, technology-driven approach helps risk leaders reduce escalation risk, strengthen legal defensibility, and improve the underwriting conversations that directly affect their bottom line.

 

If you’re evaluating how prepared your organization is for this new liability landscape, contact us and learn how Cloud Claims helps self-insured businesses reduce litigation risk and modernize their claims operations.

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Build vs. buy in claims management

Building vs. Buying Claims Software: How to Make the Call

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The right answer depends on strategy, timing, and risk tolerance.

When organizations start asking whether they should build or buy claims software, it’s rarely about technology alone. The question shows up at an inflection point: growth is accelerating, legacy systems are showing their limits, and teams are spending more time managing workarounds than managing risk.

There’s no universal right answer to the build-versus-buy debate. But there is a smarter way to evaluate the decision — one that replaces frustration and guesswork with clarity. And that matters, because this choice directly affects speed, cost control, visibility, and even team morale.

What “Build” vs. “Buy” Really Means

Building means designing and developing claims software internally, or with outside developers, to meet your exact requirements.

Buying means selecting an existing commercial platform, often delivered as SaaS, that is actively maintained and improved by a vendor. The best modern platforms are designed to be configured to your workflows, not just implemented as-is. “Buying” doesn’t have to mean accepting a one-size-fits-all solution. You can choose a proven foundation that can be tailored to how your organization works.

Off-the-shelf software offers faster deployment and proven stability, while custom-built solutions promise full control and alignment with internal processes. 

But each approach requires different commitments: building demands long-term ownership of maintenance and updates, while buying means adapting to a vendor’s product direction. Make the wrong call, and the setback can cost months, or even years.

When Building Your Own Claims Solution Makes Sense

When an organization’s processes are genuinely unique and poorly supported by existing solutions, building is probably the smart choice.

For example: A specialty insurance carrier with proprietary underwriting models that drive highly specific claims workflows might need custom logic that no commercial platform can accommodate. Or a global corporation with complex captive insurance structures and regulatory requirements across dozens of jurisdictions may require tight integration with internal systems that standard platforms don’t support.

Custom development offers maximum control. You decide how workflows operate, how data is structured, and how security is handled. For organizations with established internal development teams and a long investment in proprietary systems, that level of ownership can feel strategic rather than risky.

What to keep in mind before you begin building

It’s important to go down this path with clear expectations.

Claims and risk management systems are complex. Development timelines often stretch beyond initial estimates. And even when processes feel unique, many foundational capabilities — like intake, document management, financial tracking, compliance reporting — are shared across the industry. Building means reinventing those wheels, whether you intend to or not.

Costs extend far beyond initial design and development. Be prepared for that. Maintenance, upgrades, integrations, security updates, and regulatory changes don’t disappear once the system goes live. When you build, your organization owns every bug, every enhancement, and every future decision.

And outsourcing development doesn’t remove that responsibility. It adds management overhead across design, implementation, training, and long-term support. While AI-assisted development tools may lower barriers, they don’t eliminate ownership — they simply change how the work gets done.

Why Many Organizations Choose to Buy

Buying a claims platform can mean adapting some internal processes to align with the system’s design. But in return, organizations gain speed, predictability, and proven functionality.

Off-the-shelf, configurable platforms are built on lessons learned from many implementations. Core capabilities, like document management, task tracking, financial auditing, and reporting are robust, tested, and ready to use. These are the areas that can become blind spots when a build is narrowly focused on what feels unique.

For example: A third-party administrator handling standard commercial liability or workers’ compensation claims typically finds that 80-90% of required functionality already exists in modern platforms. The remaining customization needs can often be met through configuration rather than custom code.

SaaS platforms also spread infrastructure, development, and support costs across many customers, improving cost efficiency. Reputable vendors invest continuously in performance, usability, and security, often validated through independent audits such as SOC 2.

Implementation timelines are typically measured in weeks or months, not quarters or years. The trade-off is some control over the roadmap, but many organizations find that the faster time to value and ongoing support more than compensate.

Configurable platforms like APP Tech’s Cloud Claims are designed to balance structure with flexibility, giving teams a proven foundation while still accommodating how they work in the real world. Modern systems emphasize configuration over customization, reducing long-term technical debt while preserving the ability to support specific workflows.

One important caveat: when evaluating vendors, pay close attention to service models. Mandatory services and long-term support fees can sometimes exceed initial licensing costs if they aren’t clearly understood upfront.

Framework for Decision-Making

Rather than framing this as a philosophical debate, ground the decision in a few practical questions. Use these as a diagnostic to pressure-test your assumptions:

  1. Are your processes truly unique, or simply undocumented and inconsistent?
    If processes vary by team or region due to organic evolution rather than genuine business requirements, buying may bring welcome standardization.
  2. How much does time-to-value matter, given current inefficiencies or risk exposure?
    If delays in visibility are creating compliance risk or operational blind spots, speed favors buying.
  3. Are security and data control concerns based on real requirements, or assumptions?
    Modern SaaS platforms often exceed internal security capabilities. Review SOC 2 reports and ask specific questions about data residency and encryption.
  4. Do you have the internal capacity to support development long term, including product ownership and maintenance?
    Building requires dedicated resources for years, not just months. Consider turnover risk and competing priorities.
  5. Have you calculated total cost of ownership, including opportunity cost?
    What could your development team build that would differentiate your business? Is claims software that thing?
  6. Is claims software a true competitive differentiator, or a critical operational system that needs to work reliably?
    For most organizations, claims management is mission-critical infrastructure, not a source of competitive advantage.

Why This Matters for Risk and Claims Leaders

The technology you choose shapes how effectively your organization manages risk and how confidently leadership can make decisions.

Claims systems sit at the crossroads of risk, finance, operations, and compliance. When systems are fragmented or outdated, visibility suffers. Costs creep up. Emerging risks are harder to spot. Manual workarounds and spreadsheets increase the likelihood of errors and missed insights.

Modern platforms improve collaboration, reporting, and confidence across teams—helping leaders look proactive instead of reactive. The difference between a well-chosen system and a poorly executed one shows up in quarterly reviews, audit readiness, and the ability to scale without friction.

A Thoughtful Way Forward

Build vs. buy isn’t really about software. It’s about strategy, timing, and appetite for ownership.

The best decision aligns with your goals, resources, and tolerance for long-term responsibility. Pressure-testing assumptions early replaces emotion with clarity—and saves time, money, and frustration later.

Whatever path you choose, the objective remains the same: better visibility, better decisions, and better outcomes.

Start here: Pressure-test one assumption this week. Is your process truly unique, or simply undocumented? The answer to that single question often points the way forward.

The right partner won’t push you toward a single answer, but will help you ask the right questions before committing. If you’d like to explore how a configurable platform might fit your organization’s needs, APP Tech’s team can walk through your specific requirements without pressure or sales theater.

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Safety professional captures incident details during an early inspection, supporting an incident-first risk management approach.

4 Effective Risk Management Strategies for Clarity and Control

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Risk management doesn’t have to feel painful. While rising claims costs, operational complexity, and fragmented systems are very real challenges, they’re also solvable ones. (It’s going to be OK!) Organizations that approach risk management with purpose-built strategies and tools are finding new ways to gain control, improve visibility, and reduce exposure before problems escalate.

The most effective risk management strategies share one thing in common. They’re practical. They put incidents at the center and deliver a single source of truth, early visibility, consistent processes, and usable insights. With the right focus and a tight game plan, risk management shifts from a reactive function to a strategic advantage.

Here we outline four proven risk management strategies that help organizations move from manual and fragmented process headaches to a confident, data-driven approach that makes good risk management practices easier to execute and sustain.

Strategy #1: Get a Jump on Risk With an Incident-Based Approach

Early detection is the best protection, and it’s the key to effective risk management strategy. Before organizations can mitigate risk, reduce claim costs, or improve outcomes, they need a clear and timely understanding of where risk exists and how often it occurs. Early reporting and consistent documentation are critical to preventing minor incidents from becoming serious events.

In practice, however, many organizations still rely on claim-first models that delay visibility until a loss has already escalated. Incidents may be reported days or weeks later, captured haphazardly across locations, or tracked in disconnected systems. That delay hurts risk assessment, makes understanding the full picture harder, and limits an organization’s ability to intervene early.

An incident-based approach flips that dynamic. By capturing incidents as soon as they occur, before they evolve to full-blown claims, risk teams gain earlier insight into patterns, recurring exposures, and potential severity. Together, these data support a clearer picture of organizational risk in real time and directed strategies to reduce claims events.

Cloud Claims by APP Tech is built around this incident-first model. We pioneered it. Configurable intake tools standardize how incidents are reported across the organization, ensuring consistent, high-quality data from the start. Then centralized incident tracking allows risk managers to see trouble spots sooner, prioritize follow-up, and determine which issues require escalation. Cloud Claims turns risk assessment into an ongoing, proactive process rather than a retrospective exercise.

Strategy #2: Standardize Risk Management Best Practices Without Slowing Teams Down

Your high school coach was right: Consistency is clutch. And it’s not just true in the gym. We know that in risk management, there are a lot of moving parts, and consistency can be difficult to maintain, especially in insurance and self-insured environments. When incident reporting, documentation, and follow-up processes vary by location, adjuster, TPA, or business unit, effective risk management can start to slip away. Not because teams aren’t capable, but because the scope is complex and the processes often don’t scale well.

Legacy claims tools and homegrown systems tend to spawn inflexible workflows that don’t reflect real-world operations. Adjusters find workarounds. Risk managers lose visibility. And leadership is left piecing together reports that don’t quite tell the full story.

Clear, repeatable workflows are the key here. For insurers, TPAs, and self-insured organizations, this means standardized intake, consistent documentation, and predictable handoffs between risk, claims, and legal teams. When everyone is working from the same playbook, organizations gain cleaner data, defensibility, and a more accurate understanding of claim trends and exposure.

Now standardization can be a scary word because it sometimes signals rigidity, but Cloud Claims is designed to support risk management operations without creating friction. Customizable workflows allow organizations to enforce consistent best practices — such as required fields, review steps, and escalation rules — while still accommodating different claim types, jurisdictions, and operational needs. Role-based access and automation ensure the right stakeholders are involved at the right time, without unnecessary manual effort.

In real life, it looks like this: A self-insured organization with multiple locations standardizes how incidents are reported and reviewed across all sites. Frontline teams submit incidents through the same intake process, adjusters receive complete and consistent information, and risk managers can quickly spot patterns, such as repeat injuries or high-frequency locations, before those issues drive up claim costs. Instead of managing exceptions, the team spends its time managing risk.

When standardization works this way, it doesn’t slow teams down. It gives them clarity. Risk management best practices become easier to follow, easier to defend, and far more effective across the entire claims lifecycle.

Strategy #3: Use Reliable Data to Prevent Loss and Speed Recovery

If risk management feels more difficult than it should be, data is a primary suspect. Sure, you have volumes of information, but if it’s scattered across emails, spreadsheets, and disconnected reports that are already outdated by the time they’re reviewed, access and visibility are dubious and you’re fighting an unwinnable battle.

Effective risk management depends on understanding why incidents happen, not just that they happened. By analyzing common denominators — such as environmental conditions, training provided, equipment involved, or rehabilitation partners used — organizations can identify root causes that drive both frequency and severity. These insights allow risk teams to adjust policies, refine procedures, and intervene earlier to prevent repeat events.

In self-insured and insurance environments, this level of visibility is especially critical. A cluster of similar incidents may point to a training gap. Prolonged recovery times might reveal inconsistencies in return-to-work protocols or vendor utilization. But if reporting lags or data lives in silos, those signals get missed, and seemingly small issues quietly grow into costly claims trends.

This is where modern risk management tools make a legit difference. Cloud Claims gives you real-time dashboards and custom reports that bring incidents, claims, and trends into a single view. Risk teams can track frequency, severity, and root causes as they develop, rather than discovering them after the stakes have already escalated.

When a risk manager can quickly see that one job site, store, or fleet is generating a disproportionate number of incidents, they can act immediately. Maybe it’s a training issue. Maybe it’s a process breakdown. Maybe it’s something else entirely. Regardless, the data shines a light on the problem early, so you can cut out the risk and cut out the losses.

Strategy #4: Turn Every Incident Into a Learning Opportunity

Every incident, near miss, or claim contains insight that can help reduce future exposure, but only if systems and processes are designed to capture, connect, and apply that knowledge consistently. The most effective and resilient risk management strategies make the day-to-day process simple, and each incident is a learning opportunity.

Unfortunately, in many organizations lessons learned from one claim often stay isolated with a single adjuster, location, or department. And over time, those same issues can resurface.

Cloud Claims is designed to close the loop. With automation, consistent data capture, and configurable workflows, the platform ensures that incidents and claims feed a continuous improvement cycle. Required fields and structured intake ensure usable data from the start, while risk management is woven into natural workflows that help teams identify and apply new insights across the organization.

When near-misses consistently point to the same hazard or risk, Cloud Claims makes the pattern visible. So you can respond with targeted changes before new incidents happen. Analyzing claim outcomes alongside rehab timelines and return-to-work results helps organizations identify practices that shorten recovery and reduce total cost of risk.

Reporting on incidents is intuitive so participation goes up, and teams can capture details while they’re fresh, avoid mistakes, and trigger the next steps automatically.

 

Effective risk management isn’t about getting everything right all the time. It’s about putting a few smart strategies in place and giving your teams the tools to follow through. And getting started is usually easier than it feels at the outset.

When you spot risk early, keep processes consistent, use data you can actually act on, and make risk management part of the everyday workflow, things start to settle into place. With an incident-based platform like Cloud Claims, these strategies stop being aspirational and start working in the real world, day in and day out. (See? It really is going to be OK.)

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APP Tech gets a nod in recent independent analyst report on claims software

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We’re proud to be recognized for doing things differently — and better

We were excited to see APP Tech featured in the Verdantix Smart Innovators: Claims Management Software report (June 2025), alongside major industry players like Appian, Pega, and DXC Technology. And while we’re proud to be included, we’re even prouder of what set us apart: our unique, incident-based approach to claims and risk management.

This recognition reinforces what many of our customers already know — Cloud Claims is built for where the industry is going. 

Why APP Tech was called out

Verdantix highlighted our ability to do more than just process claims. Unlike legacy claims management systems that wait for a claim to be filed, our platform puts incidents at the center.

From page 9, Verdantix, Smart Innovators: Claims Management Software, June 2025:

“APP Tech leverages its robust incident management foundation to enhance claims management operations. Its solution combines the capabilities of CMS and a risk management information system (RMIS), capturing and connecting all relevant data from the moment an incident occurs, to deliver a unified, real-time view within a centralized system. This seamless integration ensures that all subsequent updates, including claims data, are automatically reflected. … This approach ensures consistent visibility, timely stakeholder engagement and proactive risk mitigation.”

Analysts will write like analysts, but what all that really means is that with Cloud Claims, our customers experience faster response times, more accurate data, better risk prevention, and stronger collaboration across teams.

Built for digital transformation in the real world

In the same report, Verdantix cited APP Tech (alongside DXC Technology) as a key innovator in digital claims transformation, noting that today’s leading claims management providers are responding to growing pressure for faster, more transparent, and cost-efficient solutions. The most forward-thinking platforms are cloud-native, built to initiate workflows at the incident level, and equipped with intelligent automation to streamline every step of the process. These adaptable, scalable tools are setting the standard for what modern organizations expect — and need — to stay competitive in a fast-evolving landscape.

From page 12, Verdantix, Smart Innovators: Claims Management Software, June 2025:

“Vendors such as APP Tech and DXC Technology are deploying solutions designed to centralize the handling of various claim types, such as workers’ compensation, general liability, auto and property, within a single platform. From one incident, multiple claims can be created and tied back to that single event. Consolidating claims data across departments, locations and insurance lines provides a unified view of all incidents and associated costs. This model ensures the consistent tracking of each claim’s life cycle, enables root cause analysis and supports more effective reporting and oversight. It eliminates data silos and aligns risk, finance and compliance teams around a shared, accurate source of truth. It also captures both direct and indirect costs, making it easier to identify trends, benchmark performance and forecast future risk exposure.”

Why our approach matters

We believe better claims management starts with seeing the full picture, right from the start. That’s why our approach kicks in at the incident level — giving teams the chance to step in early, take action fast, and head off bigger problems down the road. With more context and real-time data at your fingertips, it’s easier to make smart calls when they matter most. And because our system’s built to flex with how real teams actually work, it keeps things moving — even when things get complicated.

What makes APP Tech different

We keep things simple — and powerful. Cloud Claims is easy to get up and running, doesn’t demand a big IT lift, and gives you the visibility you need across every incident and claim. But the real difference? Our team. We’ve been in the trenches with risk and claims professionals, and we bring that know-how to everything we do. From setup to support, we’re with you — not just as a tech vendor, but as a partner who gets what you’re up against and knows how to help.

Let’s connect

The claims world is evolving fast — and organizations need solutions that can keep up. With AI, automation, and cloud capabilities reshaping expectations, Cloud Claims is already delivering where others are still catching up. We’re honored by the recognition from Verdantix — but what matters most is what it means for you.

If you’re ready for a better way to manage risk and resolve claims, contact us to start the conversation.

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A person seated at a desk in front of a computer, viewed from behind, stretching their arms overhead with fingers interlaced.

When managing claims becomes too painful to ignore

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There’s no magic number that tells you it’s time to upgrade your claims management system. But there is a tipping point — a moment when operational pain outweighs the perceived cost of change.

The pain shows up in all the usual places:

  • Manual workarounds that waste time and money
  • Disjointed data that delays insight
  • Expensive software with limited configurability and lackluster support
  • Compliance gaps and unchecked risk
  • Frustrated customers and underwhelmed leadership
  • Systems that just don’t scale — or even integrate

At some point, it becomes clear that the status quo costs more than the solution.

The hidden costs of outdated systems — and unresponsive vendors

Spreadsheets and legacy platforms aren’t just clunky — they’re expensive. Not just in dollars, but in delays, errors, and missed opportunities. Workarounds become standard operating procedure. Reports take so long to generate that they’re old, irrelevant news by the time they reach decision-makers. In some cases it gets so bad that leaders stop asking for insights altogether. They’ve given up.

And it’s not just the software. The hidden costs of poor vendor support — slow implementations, limited configurability, expensive custom programming, and humdrum service — can be crippling.

When your tech partner isn’t keeping pace with your needs, you’re throwing good money after bad.

Customer experience takes a hit

Customers expect real-time updates, fluid workflows, clear communication, and simple self-service tools. But outdated and ill-fitting claims systems make even the basics difficult. Claims drag out. Status updates are too vague to be useful. And, alas, frustration builds, and trust erodes.

This isn’t just an annoyance — it’s a measurable problem. Operational inefficiencies contribute to nearly $140 billion in claims-related leakage and delays across the industry, and 82% of claims still take more than 30 days to process. [1]

Good news: Here’s where purpose-built claims and risk management platforms, like Cloud Claims, shine — streamlining processes from end to end, improving response times, producing insights you can actually use, and fostering outcomes that lead to lower claims costs and fewer claims.

Risk and compliance vulnerabilities rise

Regulations evolve constantly. And unfortunately, homegrown and legacy solutions often leave organizations exposed to audits, fines, and reputational risk.

The risk extends to cybersecurity, too. Research shows that nearly 40% of cyberattacks exploit unpatched or outdated software, making legacy systems an open invitation for data breaches and regulatory penalties [2]

Good news: Cloud Claims, APP Tech’s incident-based claims management solution, is designed for security, to enforce consistency, and to maintain an audit-ready trail — so your team can proactively manage risk and stay compliant.

Outdated systems block growth

As your business grows, your claims system should scale with you. But too often, legacy systems can’t handle rising claim volumes, expanding operations, or the need for real-time data and analytics.

And the cost of maintaining these outdated systems is staggering. Seventy percent of IT budgets in insurance are devoted to legacy system maintenance, consuming resources that could be driving innovation. IT spending in the sector is expected to reach $291 billion in the next year — much of it tied up in outdated infrastructure.[3]

For smaller organizations, the hidden costs are just as damaging. An average SME with 100 users spends more than $92,000 annually maintaining outdated software, through a combination of support expenses, productivity loss, and inefficiencies. Even modest upgrades can yield a full return on investment in under two years.[4]

Good news: Cloud Claims is built to scale — integrating with modern tech stacks and adapting to your ever-shifting needs. Whether you’re adding new lines of business, expanding to new geographies, or simply processing more claims, you’ll have the confidence and flexibility to grow how you like.

The tipping point — when doing nothing is no longer an option

Eventually, the pain of Excel-based systems or software that doesn’t fit your business becomes systemic. Complex claims are getting costlier. Turnover is rising. Compliance concerns keep surfacing. Reports are slow, outdated, or just not very useful.

Your team is relying on green screens while the rest of the industry runs on smartphones.

This isn’t just an IT issue. It’s a strategic imperative. When you reach this point, the real question isn’t whether to invest — it’s whether you can afford not to.

The ROI of doing it right

Cloud Claims delivers measurable impact by smoothing operations and equipping stakeholders to make better decisions across the board. With automated workflows, teams can eliminate repetitive tasks and focus on higher-value work. Real-time reports deliver eye-opening insights that improve oversight and responsiveness. Compliance is strengthened with built-in controls and audit-ready records, reducing risk and administrative burden.

And with faster claims resolution and clearer communication, the customer experience improves dramatically. Cloud Claims isn’t a patch — it’s a performance upgrade, built to support your operation today and evolve with your business as time goes on.

Don’t wait for a crisis

Upgrading your claims and risk systems is a proactive move. It doesn’t have to wait until something breaks. The sooner you act, the more stability, efficiency, and competitive swagger you gain. When the cost of inaction is higher than the cost of change, the choice becomes clear. Make the move to a purpose-built claims management system, and instead of asking yourself, “Should we do this?” you’ll be saying “We should have done this sooner.”

 

 

[1] Operational Inefficiencies in Insurance and How Technology Can Fix Them
[2] The Hidden Dangers of Outdated Software: A Cyber Security Perspective
[3] Your Legacy Software is Eating 70% of Your IT Budget – Here’s the Exit Strategy
[4] How Much Is Outdated Software Really Costing You? Invisible Expenses Revealed

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Aerial view of construction workers in safety vests and hard hats installing a dense steel rebar grid

Miller & Long streamlined claims operations and improved risk response with Cloud Claims

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CASE STUDY: MILLER & LONG

Miller & Long streamlined claims operations and improved risk response with Cloud Claims

Industry: Commercial construction
Solution: Cloud Claims by APP Tech
Key benefits: Centralized data and workflows, faster processing, real-time insight and collaboration, simplified compliance, and long-term platform stability

Building and evolving on tradition

Founded in 1947, Miller & Long has grown from pouring sidewalks to reshaping city skylines. As a structural concrete contractor, with operations across the Mid-Atlantic region, the company manages complex, high-risk projects that demand operational precision — especially when it comes to risk and claims management.

Deborah Carr, vice president of insurance at Miller & Long, has been part of that evolution for more than 25 years. “We’ve always believed in building from within,” Carr says. “From skilled trades to claims systems, we believe in keeping our expertise in-house. But even that model needs to evolve with the times.”

For more than two decades, Miller & Long relied on a homegrown, custom-built claims management system called Odyssey. While functional in its early years, Odyssey was aging out of relevance. “It was built on Delphi 7, which hasn’t been supported for years,” says Doug Shobe, Director of IS at Miller & Long. “We couldn’t modernize, and we couldn’t scale.” 

“This wasn’t just a system upgrade — it was a shift in how we manage risk, respond to incidents, and align technology with our business goals.”
— Deborah Carr, Vice President of Insurance, Miller & Long

The challenge: Legacy technology meets operational risk

Odyssey was developed internally during the Windows XP era and remained unchanged for years. But as business needs changed, the system couldn’t keep up, Shobe explains. It required manual code updates for even minor changes, and critical components were increasingly incompatible with modern IT environments.

“Our original developer had retired, and our newer team members were struggling to keep the platform alive,” Shobe says. “Every time we needed to tweak a form or respond to a regulation, we were in the weeds — testing and debugging just to stay compliant.” 

The lack of agility was more than an IT problem — it was a risk. Miller & Long’s insurance operations support a 24/7, 365-day business. With complex cases, ever-shifting compliance requirements, and multiple involved stakeholders, the company needed more than just a place to store claims data — it needed a living, responsive system that could drive productivity and efficiency now and grow with the company.

The solution: A claims platform built for modern risk management

In 2024, Miller & Long began searching for a replacement that could offer security, configurability, and real-world usability. After evaluating several options, they selected Cloud Claims by APP Tech — a modern, cloud-based claims management software built specifically for organizations in medium- to high-risk industries managing high-volume, high-stakes claims.

Carr notes a unique alignment in culture as well as technology fit: “It felt natural to partner with a team that truly understands the space, and APP Tech understands the insurance industry because they’re rooted in it. Their deep industry knowledge and practical experience made them stand out, and they proved that they deliver big — innovation, responsiveness, and real-world solutions. Their flexibility and their approach is the right fit for our needs, both operationally and culturally.”

Miller & Long officially transitioned to Cloud Claims on January 1, 2025. The migration from Odyssey was substantial, moving over 20 years’ worth of data, but the rollout was smooth, and user adoption began immediately.

“Cloud Claims brought us structure, speed, and visibility we didn’t even realize we were missing.”
— Victor Villacorta, Insurance Claim Representative, Miller & Long

The results: Streamlined operations and real-time visibility

Today, Cloud Claims is deeply integrated into Miller & Long’s daily operations. The system manages claims from intake to closure, centralizing all activity logs, documents, correspondence, and timelines. It also enables collaboration with legal partners, case managers, and adjusters — ensuring that every stakeholder has access to accurate, timely information.

“Cloud Claims brought us structure, speed, and visibility we didn’t even realize we were missing,” says Victor Villacorta, Insurance Claim Representative at Miller & Long.

Carr adds: “This wasn’t just a system upgrade. It was a shift in how we manage risk, respond to incidents, and align technology with our business goals.”

Among the most relied-upon features is diary management, which supports accountability and transparency throughout the claims lifecycle. “You need to be able to tell the story of every claim,” Carr says. “With diary management, we don’t lose sight of deadlines or follow-ups. It’s helping us maintain control over a complex, fast-moving operation.”

A platform — and partnership — for the future

While Miller & Long is still fine-tuning its new environment and adapting workflows, the benefits of Cloud Claims are already clear: better visibility, faster processes, reduced manual effort, and scalable modernization.

More importantly, the organization feels confident in its technology partnership. “We’re not a number to them,” Carr says. “APP Tech listens. They respond. They help us tailor the system so it works the way we work. That kind of relationship is rare — and it’s why this was the right move.”

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Leaders, here’s what your claims managers wish you knew

Leaders, here’s what your claims managers wish you knew

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It starts with what seems like a simple request on a Wednesday morning.

A senior leader needs visibility into a specific category of claims — by location, over a 12-month period, segmented by type. “Can we get that by the end of the week?” they ask.

But for the claims manager, it’s not that simple. That data is buried and scattered across emails, spreadsheets, PDFs, and a paper notebook. And while formal claims are all tracked, incidents and near-misses are not. Pulling all this information together will mean hours of digging, cross-checking, reformatting — and even then, there’s a risk it won’t be 100 percent accurate.

What leadership sees as a routine reporting request — and a reasonable one — feels, to the claims team, daunting. Cue panic.

Simple request vs. complex reality: One report is never just one report

Leaders expect timely insights, and claims teams want to deliver. But legacy tools and disconnected systems can make it feel impossible.

It starts with data capture. If your team isn’t logging information and images at the scene of an incident (First Report), you’re already introducing blind spots.

Data wrangling often requires pulling from different systems, each with its own inefficiencies and quirks. And as information is gathered, inconsistencies emerge, and tiny mistakes can wreak havoc. For example, if dropdowns weren’t available when the data was input, a misspelled word or ambiguous label can make data unfindable. Formatting issues and missing fields make it hard to filter or segment claims in meaningful ways.

When existing tools fall short, team members often resort to workarounds. They create additional spreadsheets, jot down notes, or store data in their inboxes — all in an effort to “make it work.” But this complicates an already complicated issue and moves your organization further away from a single source of truth.

It all adds up to more time spent searching, double-checking, and reformatting — and a higher likelihood that something slips through the cracks. It’s not just inefficient. It’s frustrating and demoralizing.

What chaos costs your claims operation

When visibility is retrofitted instead of built into the system, the impact ripples across the organization.

Operationally, decision-making slows as teams scramble for context. Delays in communication create confusion or rework. Risk exposure increases when leaders are forced to act without complete information. And financially, missing or incorrect data leads to higher reserves and inflated payouts. These avoidable errors can take a direct toll on the bottom line.

Culturally, the effects are just as damaging. When teams are overwhelmed by manual work and constant urgency, they can begin to feel undervalued. Morale dips. Burnout sets in. Turnover rises. And outside the organization, the ripple effect can reach your customers. When claims are delayed or mishandled, frustration builds — and your brand reputation takes a hit.

What claims managers wish leadership understood

Most claims professionals are invested in protecting the organization and doing right by their teams. They want leadership to understand that visibility can’t be added after the fact. It has to be woven into the claims process from the very beginning. Real-time insight isn’t possible when information lives in silos, and while most teams are more than willing to dig for answers, they need tools that make it feasible.
Your risk and claims professionals want to be empowered with the right technology, not only to answer questions, but to proactively identify patterns and potential exposures — and to deliver game-changing insights no one even thought to ask for.

The fix: Proactive visibility with Cloud Claims

Cloud Claims is designed to give your organization an edge in proactive claims and risk management.

With Cloud Claims, incident and claims data are captured and centralized in a single platform. Real-time dashboards and automated reporting replace the scramble with strategic clarity, and because Cloud Claims connects risk, legal, finance, and safety in one system, it empowers enhanced collaboration across teams. Less firefighting, more informed decisions, and trust across departments.

A better question for leadership to ask

“How can we empower our claims team to get ahead of the request?”

When teams are dealing with emergencies on the ground, they don’t have the luxury of looking up and ahead. Investing in a purpose-built technology platform is more than a budget decision: It’s about investing in people’s time and expertise, and unleashing new insights, efficiencies, and opportunities. It’s about empowering teams to roll up their sleeves, follow their own instincts, and look into the data, beyond what leadership is asking for.

Take the example of a transportation company that centralized their claims and risk management and discovered accidents were happening at a high rate late in shifts. They saw a trend in the data, implemented shorter shifts and more breaks, and accidents went down.
When consistency and visibility are built in, everyone benefits. Leadership gets deeper insight, teams feel more empowered, and outcomes improve.

Is your team spending more time chasing down information and building reports than improving outcomes? Let’s chat about ways to fix that.

 

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The Rising Cost of Claims: How Self-Insured Businesses and Insurers Can Get a Grip on Expenses in Medium- and High-Risk Industries

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In medium- and high-risk industries like construction, logistics, and retail, businesses are feeling the squeeze of rising claims costs. It’s not just an operational headache and a financial threat; there’s a real human cost, as well.

For context, recent data shows self-insured businesses and insurance providers are seeing more workers’ compensation claims, higher liability risks, and increasing property damage expenses. Add inflation, more lawsuits, and tougher regulations, and those costs just keep climbing.

Between 2020 and 2022, the price of materials and labor shot up by 55 percent (Insurance Information Institute), making property claims way more expensive. Insurance rates in high-risk industries have also been climbing, by an average of 12.5 percent annually (Bipartisan Policy Center), forcing businesses to absorb higher premiums and deductibles. On top of that, fraudulent claims and legal system abuse are adding even more pressure, especially when it comes to workers’ comp and liability cases (Insurance Information Institute).

For self-insured businesses, this all means setting aside more money for claims reserves, which can strain finances. For insurers, it leads to higher premiums and lower profits. The good news: There’s an easy way to get ahead of this challenge with a smarter, more proactive approach to managing claims. More on that later in this article.

What’s Driving Up Claims Costs?

One of the biggest reasons claims are getting more expensive is workplace injuries. In industries like construction and logistics, accidents happen all the time — and they’re not cheap. Strains, falls, and equipment-related injuries often lead to long recovery times, rising medical bills, and bigger disability claims. Medical costs for workers’ comp have been outpacing inflation for years, and as the workforce ages, injury severity is going up, leading to longer rehab and higher payouts.

Then there’s property and equipment damage. If you’re self-insured and working with vehicles, heavy machinery, or buildings, you know how expensive repairs can get. Inflation and supply chain issues have made it pricier than ever to fix or replace vehicles, while extreme weather events like wildfires and hurricanes are sending property claims through the roof.

To compound the problem, cargo theft has hit unprecedented levels. One particularly damaging trend is “strategic cargo theft,” where bad actors pose as legitimate carriers to steal entire shipments. These incidents are difficult to recover from and often go unresolved, putting additional financial pressure on carriers and shippers. 

The issue has grown so severe that federal lawmakers are now addressing what’s being called “Grand Theft Cargo.”

And let’s not forget about lawsuits. Legal costs are skyrocketing thanks to what’s known as “social inflation” — basically, more lawsuits, bigger jury awards, and aggressive legal tactics. Liability claims are getting hit hard, and with more third-party litigation funding out there, businesses and insurers are seeing more claims head to court, which means even higher costs.

According to insights from Adam Green, SVP at Risk Strategies Company, the frequency of bodily injury and property damage claims against brokers has climbed, and longstanding insurers have exited the space entirely. As a result, underwriting standards have tightened dramatically, with insurers demanding more rigorous vetting, raising premiums and deductibles, and increasingly excluding coverage for theft and fraud. 

The Human Impact of Rising Claims Costs

Behind the numbers is a very real effect on the people we all serve. Tighter budgets mean tough choices, and cost-cutting often leads to fewer resources for safety programs, delayed equipment upgrades, and even staff reductions. Workers in medium- and high-risk industries face direct consequences, with some having to operate in conditions where safety is less than ideal.

When businesses struggle to keep up with rising claims costs, the risk of workplace accidents can increase, leading to more injuries, longer recovery times, and greater financial strain on employees and their families.

For injured workers, a slow or inefficient claims process can mean delayed medical care, prolonged time away from work, and uncertainty about their financial stability. Higher insurance costs may also force businesses to raise deductibles or shift more costs onto employees, making healthcare and workers’ compensation benefits harder to access. And for small businesses, these rising costs could mean layoffs, reduced wages, or even shutdowns, affecting livelihoods and local economies.

At the insurer level, rising claims expenses mean premium hikes that get passed down to businesses and, ultimately, to consumers. When costs go up across industries like construction and logistics, it can drive up the price of goods and services for everyone. This ripple effect touches workers, businesses, and everyday people who rely on these industries.

At its core, managing rising claims costs isn’t just about protecting a company’s bottom line — it’s about protecting the people behind the business. A smarter, more proactive approach to claims management can help ensure that employees get the care they need, businesses stay financially stable, and industries continue to thrive without unnecessary risk or hardship.

How to Keep Claims Costs Under Control

So, what can businesses do to fight back? It all starts with being proactive.

Preventing accidents before they happen is the best way to keep costs down. Companies in high-risk industries can offer regular safety training and refresher courses, use wearable safety technology to track worker fatigue and posture, and implement AI-driven video monitoring to spot risky behavior. 

One of the most effective ways to prevent future claims is to learn from past ones. Incident-based claims and risk management (Cloud Claims) helps businesses do just that by tracking and analyzing every reported incident — whether it results in a claim or not. By capturing near-misses, minor injuries, and equipment failures in real time, companies can identify patterns and root causes before they escalate into costly claims. This proactive approach allows safety teams to address risks early, implement targeted training, and make data-driven decisions to improve workplace safety.

Beyond prevention, incident-based tracking also streamlines claims handling when accidents do happen. By having detailed incident reports readily available, businesses can ensure accurate documentation, reduce disputes, and speed up the claims resolution process. Over time, this leads to fewer repeat incidents, lower claims costs, and a safer work environment for everyone.

Take Control of Your Claims Costs

At the end of the day, businesses and insurers in medium- and high-risk industries need to take a multi-pronged approach to managing claims. That means: preventing claims before they happen with better visibility, stronger safety programs, and better risk analytics; and streamlining claims handling to cut down on delays and unnecessary expenses.

At APP Tech, we’ve helped hundreds of businesses and organizations across North America take control of claims costs with smart automation, incident-based tracking, and intelligent claims triage. If you’re ready to reduce claims expenses and get ahead of rising costs, let’s talk.

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Look at it another way: Why an incident-based approach makes sense for claims and risk managers

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An incident-based approach to claims and risk management helps self-insured businesses get ahead and stay ahead by tracking incidents from the start and capturing critical data that may be lost in traditional systems. These insights can help prevent future losses and create a safer work environment for everyone.

The problem with traditional claims-focused systems

Traditional claims-management solutions often prioritize the claims process itself while leaving incidents and near-misses untracked or as separate, loosely connected data points. In these systems, where incidents exist independently, claims managers are tasked with the tedious work of connecting them to claims in a meaningful way. 

On top of the extra effort, critical information can slip through the cracks, creating gaps in risk visibility and making it harder for businesses to proactively identify trends and prevent future incidents.

Simply put, most claims-management systems aren’t geared for effective risk management. 

What is incident-based claims management?

Incident-based claims management links all relevant data from the moment an incident happens, providing a more complete picture of workplace risks and enabling organizations to act earlier and more effectively.

When an incident — such as a workplace injury, vehicle accident, or property damage — occurs, it is immediately logged into the system. All new information, including subsequent claim information, is seamlessly tied together in a risk management information system (RMIS). From there, the organization can keep tabs on all related details, notify stakeholders, and take necessary actions to prevent further escalation. 

This approach puts incidents at the hub and creates a direct link between workplace safety and risk management. (OSHA compliance, for example, is based on incidents, not necessarily claims.) By tracking all incidents — including those that don’t immediately result in claims — businesses can get a clearer picture of their overall risk exposure and can proactively address issues before they escalate.

Why tracking incidents, not only claims, is a smarter move

Instead of just focusing on claims that have already been formally submitted, an incident-based approach gives you insight into everything — from close calls to formal cases to resolution.

  • Improved cost tracking: One accident can result in claims across multiple policies (e.g., workers’ compensation, property, third-party general liability). An incident-based approach allows organizations to track all related claims together, even when some are managed internally and others by third-party administrators or carriers. This comprehensive view makes it easier to understand total costs at the incident level, aiding in management decisions, self-insurance strategies, and future policy negotiations.
  • Reduced redundancy: Traditional claims-only systems often force duplicate data entry when multiple claims arise from a single event. By centralizing incident tracking, businesses eliminate inefficiencies and improve data accuracy. Critical data points — such as date of incident, date reported, and description — are only entered once, improving accuracy and reducing administrative workload.
  • Shared documentation: Incident-based systems allow photos, documents, and notes to be stored and accessed in one place, ensuring consistency and reducing the risk of missing key information.
  • Natural data flow: Unlike the oxymoronic “notice-only claim” in traditional systems, data in an incident-based system flows naturally from incidents into claims as events unfold, maintaining continuity and providing real-time insight into risk trends.

Pairing this comprehensive data capture with automated notifications and updates ensures that the right people are alerted as soon as an incident occurs, leading to faster response times and better coordination across teams. And keeping claimants informed throughout the process builds trust and improves their overall experience.

Making the switch to an incident-based approach

Switching from traditional claims management tools or manual spreadsheets might seem overwhelming, but it doesn’t have to be. APP Tech’s Cloud Claims makes it easy to adopt an incident-based approach with a user-friendly platform that simplifies data intake and tracking, customizable workflows that fit your business and all its nuance, plus scalable features that grow with your organization.

Staying ahead of claims and risks requires a smarter approach. An incident-based system not only helps businesses manage claims more efficiently but also provides valuable insights that can prevent future losses. By focusing on incidents instead of claims and by capturing and analyzing data early, companies can improve workplace safety, support their employees better, and reduce claim costs.

Ready to improve your claims process? Contact us. We’re happy to give you a Cloud Claims tour and work together to determine if an incident-based approach is right for your company.

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