Congratulations to the participants of the Associated Builders and Contractors of Michigan Self-Insured Workers' Compensation Fund! Members of this highly successful program will be receiving the largest returns of profit in Fund's history. Again, this year the Fund was approved to distribute $2,880,000 of profit back to its members. This return brings the total profits returned to over $22.8 million since the Fund's inception in 1995.

Returns like these are no accident, the Board of Trustees work hard on behalf of the Fund to ensure the members have a long-term cost effective program. The ABC Fund's unique structure combined with its solid performance has helped insulate its members from the turbulence of the traditional insurance marketplace. "Ordinarily an insurance company keeps the underwriting profits and investment income," according to Tim Hanna, Fund Administrator. "But in the case of the ABC Fund, the members earn it which helps drive their long-term costs down."

The ABC Fund is able to return significant profits back to its members because of its proactive loss control efforts, aggressive claim management and selective underwriting guidelines. Fund members consist of business owners that care about their success in the program and are committed to keeping their potential claim costs to a minimum.

The ABC Self-Insured Workers' Compensation Fund is also very selective when accepting new members. The selection process helps ensure that only the best performing operators participate in the program. In order to be written into the ABC Fund, each new applicant is carefully reviewed and must have a proven track record of low losses, acceptable work exposures, an implemented safety program and be financially stable. The lower the Fund's claim costs, the greater the profits.

For members that have experienced claims or want to prevent potential claims from occurring, the Fund also has a dedicated safety and loss control staff that specializes in the clubs industry and are available to help members in a variety of ways. They assist ABC Fund members by providing safety consultations, management training, safety manuals and numerous other resources.

The goal of the ABC Fund's safety and loss control specialists is to provide educational tools and services that can help members prevent potential claims and assist in the ongoing profitability of the Fund and its members. In addition, members receive semi-annual reports that reflect how they are performing and the amount of profit they are estimated to receive.