建造workers were already suffering from opioid abuse and struggling to deal with mental health problems when Covid-19 added another major stressor.

But many sizable, mid-sized contractors are left to their own devices when dealing with these risks to both the health and safety of their workers and their overall productivity and the bottom line.

Insurer Liberty Mutual, one of the largest providers of workers’ compensation insurance and other insurance policies for the construction industry, has teamed up with a major mental health contractor to offer mid-sized contractors an employee assistance program as an endorsement to the company’s workers’ compensation policies.

Under the agreement with Magellan Healthcare, Liberty Mutual is now offering middle market construction contractors who have workers’ comp policies through Liberty the option of coverage that provides a range of counseling, substance abuse and other services to their employees.

目标市场是拥有1,000名员工或更少员工的公司，根据Liberty的研究，不太可能提供自己的员工援助计划，或者至少可以访问一家大公司可能存在的强大公司。

“Contractors understand the direct link between stress, employee productivity and business performance,” says Liberty Mutual’s construction executive for distribution, Ben Beauvais. “That’s why we found overwhelming buyer and broker interest in accessing an EAP through a workers compensation carrier as we developed the offering.”

但是，正如Beauvais和Ryan Powers一样，Liberty Mutual的Northeast部门承销经理进行了建设，解释说，在阿片类药物成瘾危机的后果之中，保险公司开始在冠状病毒危机袭击之前起草覆盖范围。

As a high-risk, high-stress field in which injuries can lead to the use and abuse of prescription opioid painkillers, the construction industry has seen a surge in job-site overdoses over the past few years, according to a study released in early 2020.

建筑研究与培训中心的报告发现，2018年有65例意外过量死亡，而前一年的48例，2011年总共有7人。

“This journey started well before the coronavirus,” Powers says. “We felt the opioid crisis was so widespread but had particularly hard in the construction space.”

“I have certainly heard stories from our insureds about addicted employees who have come back and vandalized property, and CFOs and risk managers that have had to bury employees,” Powers adds. “There are no worse circumstances than that.”

After the pandemic hit, the two Liberty Mutual construction insurance executives and other team members did a quick reevaluation of whether to push ahead with the program.

“This is so much more than about opioid addiction,” Powers says. “Those stresses are more impactful than they have ever been.”

Liberty Mutual”最近开始以降低的速度提供员工援助计划。服务包括针对处理各种心理健康和药物滥用问题的工人的教练和咨询，更不用说财务和法律挑战了。

虽然保险公司拒绝详细介绍其费率，但自由互助的节目，鉴于其投资组合的规模，它可以与麦哲伦较低的利率进行谈判，其中700家中型建筑公司平均每人300名员工。

保险公司表示，它不会预计其推出会立即获得回报，但更多的是为其工人的补偿客户增加价值。

鲍尔斯说：“我不确定我们可以从中获得多少意外收获。”“这更多是善意的奉献。如果它产生（收入越多），那么如果发生这种情况，胜利就越大。”

But there are also longer-term synergies that could work to reduce costs on both the insurer’s side and the insureds as well.

“This is very attractive from an underwriter’s perspective,” Powers said. “Those kinds of buyers are good kinds of risk, the ones we want to underwrite.”