When a worker becomes sick or injured on the job, the ways
that this event can impact the bottom line of that business are many and
varied. Of course there are the cost associated with
the down time your business may experience while that worker is at home
recovering, but there is also the possibility of lost revenue due to lost business
that you can’t engage in if you need that employee to get the work done. And don’t forget that workers compensation
insurance policies are experience rated so that means that your past losses
will affect the rates that you pay in the future. OSHA tells us that injuries and illnesses
cause increased absenteeism, decreased productivity and reduced morale among
the non-injured workers. All of the
effects can be expensive to a small business owner. But
among all of the types of workplace injuries, some in particular are more
costly than others. If your business
model leaves you vulnerable to losses of these types, then this is a wakeup
call for you to take protective action to prevent these most expensive types of losses from
happening to your company.
There are 5 types of injuries that currently account for 72%
of all the direct workers comp costs for employers in the U.S. These types of accidents cause losses totaling over $35.7 billion
dollars each year. They are,
overexertion, fall to the same level, fall to a lower level, bodily reaction,
and struck by an object. Take just a
moment and think about each of these types of accidents, one at a time to
determine if your business is vulnerable to that kind of loss anywhere in your
work processes. Once you have done this, think even more
carefully about ways in which you could establish changed procedures or different
workflow strategies that might help prevent that type of accident.
This is a big job and requires some out of the box thinking
to imagine what might go wrong to lead to a loss of any of these types. The good news is that there is professional
help available to you to accomplish this.
Some insurance companies sell only workers
compensation insurance policies and often those insurance companies offer a
rich and inexpensive buffet of services and programs to help you evaluate and
prevent injuries to your employees.
According to the U.S. Department of Labor, employers can save $4 to $6 for every $1
spent on safety and health programs. Also,
workplaces with successful safety and health management systems are usually
able to reduce injury and illness costs by 20% to 40%. If you consider that overall lost
productivity just from lost productivity due to injuries and illnesses in the
U.S. costing companies an estimated $60 billion per year, you can readily see that
taking a moment to consider loss prevention for your business could have an
enormous effect on your bottom line.
I advise that you check in with yourself on these most
costly types of injury causes, then check in with your workers compensation
insurance company to see what they can offer you to help you prevent them. If you find that your insurance company is
not particularly helpful, or if they don’t have a rich offering of tools and
knowledge to help you prevent more injuries, then I suggest you start looking
for another workers compensation insurance company.
At Clinard
Insurance Group, located in Winston Salem, NC, we represent a number of workers compensation
insurance companies who specialize in this type of coverage only. They have ways to help you reduce and prevent
injuries in the first place, and they also have tools and knowledge to reduce
the overall costs of injuries once they occur. If your business is located in
North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee or Virginia, then give us a
call, toll free at 877-687-7557 and put us to work for you today to lower your
workers compensation costs, both now and in the future.
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