SPOKES

by Fur

Mercury Rising #5, Moon Season, 1992

HERE'S THE SCOOP: bikers are NOT the main source of upward pressureon Workers’ Comp rates in the messenger industry. Interviews with HankNewman of COMPRO Insurance Services and Robert Mollman, General Counselof the California Workers Compensation Institute, reveal the culprits tobe (oddly enough) long-haul truckers and armored car drivers.

Much of the press coverage of the issue leads one to believe that thereis a rate for bike messengers, but in fact we're just one little cornerof rate classification #7198, "parcel delivery", along with UPS,Fed-X and practically everybody who moves anything you could call a "parcel."People are often killed or permanently disabled in accidents involvingbig rigs, and armored car drivers get robbed and shot at, as well as havingmore serious accidents than drivers of smaller vehicles.

The figure we saw in the January 8th Chronicle, $17.80 per $100 of payrollis the base rate, reflecting the average for #7198. The actual rate a companypays is further determined by experience modification, a calculation ofthe company's record over the past 3 years, which boils down to a number.Says CWCI's Mollman, "a 1.6 mod, for instance, means you'll pay 60%morethan the base rate."

The net rate may be further affected by a dividend insurers pay backto some clients annually if their record for the year was good, and iftheir account is large.

The Association of Messenger and Courier Services (AMCS, pronouncedAmsis, or, if you prefer, abcess) wants out of good ol’ #7198. COMPRO willbe representing AMCS before the Classification and Rating committee ofthe Rating Bureau in its bid to create a separate rate classification formessenger/courier services. According to Hank Newman, the companies feeltheir interests would be better served by having their own rate group,and the industry is now large enough to make this practical. A classificationfor bikes alone is not in the cards however, says Newman, because "thepayroll base is not broad (meaning large) enough."

AMCS’ move to secede from its rate class is significant, for we caninfer from it that most companies" experience mods" are low.If they didn't think they could get a lower base rate out on their own,they could not have agreed to press for this new deal. This doesn't meanbikes are cheap to keep, though. One problem we have is that experiencemodification is calculated not just on the basis of dollar losses, butalso on the frequency of incidents, regardless of fault. The vast majorityof bikers’ WC claims are quite small, and many are paid back when settlementsare reached with the insurers of motorists who were at fault. But evenif you're doored, and you settle, and there’s no net loss to the comp carrier,it's still going to drive up your company’s "mod" The falloutis that we and our employers, are paying for the brutality of our car-cloggedenvironment, and for an insurance game that's rigged against us. Beingsafe goes beyond how we ride. The struggles of Bay Area Bicyclists' Action,SF Bike Coalition, and the City's Bicycle Advisory Committee to changetransportation policy are our struggles, too. If we want to stay on twowheels, we’ve got to "party for our right to bike."

A note to our inside contacts: if you liked the old Executive bike service,you'll love King Courier, a new cooperatively-run company of alumni ofthe Exec school of hard knocks. They’re insured, bonded and rolling. Call543-6269 for royal service!

Reporter Carl T. Hall took me to lunch on the Chronicle’s nickel tohear about aspects of the Exec layoff story we felt he missed. He was gladto see that we’re getting organized and contrite about the less-than-com-pleteproduct of his admittedly hasty effort. Really, he did a pretty good jobconsidering the misleading info he had to work wilh, but if I see the phrase"derring-do" in one more article on messengers, I’ll...I don'tknow what I'll do.

If you have comments or suggestions, email me at messvilleto@yahoo.com