Stephen J. Klingel has served as president and CEO of the National Council on Compensation Insurance Inc. since 2002. Prior to joining the Boca Raton, Florida-based workers compensation ratings and research organization, he held a number of leadership positions. Mr. Klingel will retire in February 2016 after more than four decades in the insurance industry. He recently spoke with Business Insurance Associate Editor Stephanie Goldberg about emerging issues in workers comp and the advice he'll give his successor. Edited excerpts follow.

Q: What are some emerging issues that could affect the workers compensation industry?

A: My concern is about opt-out and the question of trying to build a system outside of workers comp that duplicates the protections given to injured employees under the work comp system. The devil is in the details.

Q: What other trends should we keep an eye on?

A: One is the attacks from the courts on the idea of exclusive remedy. It's one thing to argue that benefits aren't adequate, which can be dealt with in the legislatures, but it's a whole other issue to allow lawsuits against employers or even to declare the whole system as unconstitutional. So far, none of those attacks has survived appeal, so it isn't something that's creating major disruption at the moment.

I have another one that may be more likely: If legislatures decide they do want to broaden their benefit levels, which is very appropriate for them to consider, there's a recognition that rates need to be adjusted to encompass those additional costs driven by higher benefit levels. The last thing I'd watch is, we continue to face the reality of medical cost inflation.

Q: What's the best way to combat rising medical costs?

A: The most effective way to control medical costs is adopting a responsive and effective case management platform.

That's probably the most effective tool that's been used, but there are many others now in use helping to control costs. Those would include fee schedules, intensified opioid management, drug formularies and, lastly, some restrictions on physician drug dispensing.

Q: Congratulations on your impending retirement. What do you consider your greatest success in your 13 years with NCCI?

A: The introduction of the medical data call (reporting guide), which was in the middle part of the last decade. We just didn't have the data necessary to answer the key questions that were driving workers compensation results. And until we had that in place for all carriers in our jurisdictions, that was a heavy load to get introduced.

Q: Who will fill your shoes, and what advice will you give that person?

A: There is a search commit- tee looking to find a proper successor.

The National Convention of Insurance Commissioners (in 1919) really created NCCI to collect data from all the carriers writing workers compensation and analyze it to determine where rates should be. That's exactly the same mission we carry out today.

The scope of things has certainly enlarged, but at its core, that's what NCCI is designed to do. I would certainly tell my successor don't lose sight of that.

The other piece of advice I would give them is to make sure they're visibly active in the marketplace. I've worked hard to be out in the marketplace, at the conferences, at the NAIC meeting with regulators, meeting with carriers and speaking at conferences just to learn and understand what's happening out there.

Q: In case we don't speak again before February, do you have any parting words?

A: It's just been an amazing 42 years. I never realized, until I got into it, what an honor it is to work in this industry because of what we do, which is come to the rescue of people — individuals, businesses, whomever — at sometimes the worst possible moments of their lives. ... I've been very proud to be a part of that for so many years.