Business Insurance
Driving risk management down to the more than 300 local Boy Scout councils nationwide went further than inducing the councils to create active risk management committees.
As director of insurance and risk management for the Boy Scouts of America, Debra Griffith kept risk management in the spotlight for the councils through a series of programs that targeted the major sources of claims and the most severe losses for the Boy Scouts organization.
Managing risk for an organization out of its headquarters ``is wonderful,'' Ms. Griffith said, ``but it's got to flow down.''
Ms. Griffith's RISK ZONE campaign, with its logo of an exclamation mark as the ``I'' in RISK and a sleepy eye as the ``O'' in ZONE, began targeting the risk of fatigued adult volunteers driving Scouts in 1998.
The problem typically occurred after an overnight troop outing, such as a camp out, when an adult volunteer who did not get a restful night's sleep would drive Scouts home from the event. The RISK ZONE campaign, waged through special literature and the risk management newsletter Ms. Griffith's office published, alerted local councils and volunteers to the problem.
With approximately 3.5 million Scouts and 1 million adult volunteers nationwide, the organization's exposure is significant.
Ms. Griffith advised Scout leaders and volunteers how to address the issue: appoint a designated driver for the trip home, and ensure that the driver has no responsibilities the night before the return trip other than getting a sound night's sleep.
In 1997, the year before Ms. Griffith began the campaign, 32 reported automobile claims cost the Boy Scouts $8.1 million. In 2000, the last year for which final claims information is available, 15 reported claims led to $539,000 in losses.
Since then, the number of still-open claims and the loss totals has bounced around, but claim severity in four of the past five years has been less than $4.5 million and was less than $120,000 in two years. In 2004, the worst year for auto losses since the RISK ZONE's inception, claim severity was $6.2 million, though claim frequency was shaved to eight incidents.
The broader RISK ZONE BSA Risk Ready campaign grew out of the RISK ZONE campaign at the suggestion of the Risk Management Advisory Panel. That group consists of two Scout executives from each of the organization's four regions nationwide.
Risk Ready encourages local councils to focus on the types of losses that either occur most often or cost the Boy Scouts the most in lives and dollars. Those risks include aquatics, slips and falls, vehicles, cardiac problems, fires and employment-related issues.
Risk management modified the logo for this campaign, which rolled out in May 2004 during the national meeting of Scout executives. The ``I'' and ``O'' in RISK ZONE were changed to an inverted magnifying glass over an alert eye.
At the national meeting and at subsequent conferences for local council executives, risk management promoted the campaign through a ``Wheel of Risk'' game. Scout executives would spin the wheel and answer the question on which the wheel dial landed. Most of the questions were drawn from the ``Guide to Safe Scouting.''
Correct answers garnered contestants promotional stress balls that were shaped to represent the risks that concern risk management most. For example, a boat represented aquatic risks and a banana represented slips and falls.
Risk management now is working on a compact disc version of the game and plans to introduce an electronic risk management game similar to ``Jeopardy'' sometime this year.
In attacking the Boy Scouts' employee harassment risk, Ms. Griffith approached and worked with other groups within the organization.
As she saw those claims begin to rise during the late 1990s, Ms. Griffith approached the human resources department for its assistance in educating the organization about the kinds of behavior that can lead to those types of claims.
In 1999, human resources produced and disseminated throughout the organization a video on the risk, and claims began dropping, Ms. Griffith said.
But in recent years, harassment claim totals ``crept up'' again, she said.
Ms. Griffith again turned to human resources, which, with input from the Risk Management Advisory Council, selected an online interactive training program.
The mandatory program, provided by Workplace Answers of San Francisco, is being rolled out to national and local Scout executives this year. A feature of the service allows human resources to track who has undergone the training.
Camp staff, who typically are of college age, will have to participate in the program next year. In the meantime, Ms. Griffith developed a camp staff code of conduct, which human resources and the Boy Scouts' programs group will administer this year.