Disability insurance experts with the Guardian Life Insurance Company have developed an index for measuring and predicting the success of companies’ absence management programs in conjunction with their short-term and long-term disability. Guardian’s Andrew Hutchison, assistant vice president of group life and disability products, and Judy Buczek, manager of group disability products, are taking the opportunity to encourage small and midsize employers who haven’t yet implemented absence management to do so.
Lacking a program, Hutchison says, can prove more than wasteful; it can lead to falling short of compliance with federal laws like the Family and Medical Leave Act and Americans with Disabilities Act, not to mention conflicting or overlapping state statutes. Trying to mitigate such compliance risks, he says, can be a full-time job on its own.
