November 12, 2003—While American workplaces are becoming safer, the cost of on-the-job injuries continues to rise, according to the findings of the latest Liberty Mutual Workplace Safety Index announced today.
“Managing the significant and growing cost of workplace injuries is a critical challenge facing all companies, regardless of size, industry and location,” notes Brian Melas, a senior vice president of commercial insurance at Liberty Mutual.
The Workplace Safety Index ranks the leading causes of serious on-the-job injuries—those resulting in an employee missing six or more days from work—based on direct costs—payments to injured employees and their medical care providers. The Safety Index can help companies focus their safety efforts by highlighting the causes of the most expensive workplace injuries.
Significant findings from the latest Workplace Safety Index include:
- The financial burden of serious work-related injuries and illnesses grew to $45.8 billion in 2001 from $44.2 billion in 2000.
- This cost grew 13.5 percent between 1998 and 2001, or 4 percent after adjusting for inflation in medical and wage benefits.
The top 10 causes of workplace injures in 2001 were:
- Overexertion
- Falls on Same Level
- Bodily Reaction
- Falls To Lower Level
- Struck by Object
- Repetitive Motion
- Highway Incident
- Struck Against Object
- Caught in, Compressed by
- Assaults & Violent Acts
The frequency of serious work-related injuries fell 6 percent between 2000 and 2001, the largest single decline in the four years of the Workplace Safety Index. The number of injuries fell 1.3 percent between 1999 and 2000, and grew 0.2 percent between 1998 and 1999. There were fewer, but more expensive serious work-related injuries in 2001, one reason the total cost of injuries did not decline despite the 6 percent drop in frequency.
More information on the latest Workplace Safety Index findings, tips on how employers can prevent the leading causes of workplace injuries, and case studies showing how companies improved safety and the benefits they received, are available from Liberty Mutual.
The current Workplace Safety Index is based on data from 2001, the latest year for which data is available, and tracks performance since 1998. In developing the Index, researchers apply Liberty Mutual 2001 workers compensation claims cost to the workplace injury frequency information reported by the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics for injuries occurring that year. To provide a broader perspective, the relative proportions of each injury type are applied to the national estimates of the cost of workers compensation benefits from the National Academy of Social Insurance, which includes information from a broad range of workers compensation insurance providers.
