December 31, 2004—A mix of bad news and good news about serious on-the-job injuries (those causing an employee to miss six or more days of work) emerged from the latest findings of the annual Liberty Mutual Workplace Safety Index.
For the bad news, the cost of these workplace injuries continues to soar, even after adjusting for medical and wage inflation. Over half of the 12.1% increase between 1998 and 2002 happened in 2002, despite a drop in the number of serious injuries over those four years.
For the good news, the ranking of the top nine causes of workplace injuries was the same for the past four years, giving risk and safety managers a clear roadmap for preventing the most expensive injuries, says Liberty Mutual.
“If you want to dramatically cut workers compensation costs, follow the numbers, not the headlines,” notes Dr. Tom Leamon, Director of the Liberty Mutual Research Institute for Safety. “Understand why your employees get hurt and address these sources, rather than the latest safety fads.”
The top 10 workplace injuries in 2002 were:
- Overexertion (26.6%; cost: $13.2 billion)
- Falls on Same Level (12.5%; $6.2 billion)
- Bodily Reaction (10.8%; $5.3 billion)
- Falls to Lower Level (9.2%; $4.6 billion)
- Struck by Object (8.9%; $4.4 billion)
- Repetitive Motion (5.7%; $2.8 billion)
- Highway Incident (5.2%; $2.6 billion)
- Struck against Object (4.7%; $2.3 billion)
- Caught in or Compressed by (3.8%; $1.9 billion)
- Assaults (0.9%; $0.4 billion)
- All Other (11.7%; $5.8 billion)
Total (100%; $49.6 billion)
Other highlights from the latest study include:
- The top three injury causes (Overexertion, Falls on Same Level and Bodily Reaction):
- Represent 50% of the total cost of serious workplace injuries in 2002, costing employers about $25 billion a year or $500 million a week.
- Are the fastest growing of all injury costs. Costs for each of the top three rose 3.8%, 5.9%; and 11.8%, respectively, between 2001 and 2002. Between 1998 and 2002, costs for each rose 16.4%, 25.7%, and 28.7%, respectively.
- Serious work-related injuries cost employers almost $1 billion per week in 2002 in payments to injured workers and their medical care providers, growing to $49.6 billion from $46.1 billion in 2001.
- The number of serious work-related injuries fell 0.7% in 2002 from 2001, and 7.8% between 1998 and 2002.
Liberty Mutual asserts that workplace injuries are not inevitable, but that preventing injuries requires a well thought out plan. According to Liberty Mutual, the plans that have the greatest impact on safety share five key steps:
- Identify the injuries that drive workers compensation costs;
- Prioritize the ones to address;
- Set clear targets for reducing each injury;
- Implement changes to control risks and train workers; and
- Regularly measure performance and update the plan.
