The Effects of Loss
The result of accidents is loss. The most
obvious loss from accidents is personal injury or illness and all the
costs associated with it. The first concern in Safety & Health
management is the protection or people from pain and suffering; however,
organisations cannot ignore the significant financial impact of loss on
the organisation.
Somewhat less obvious is the property
damage resulting from accidents, although in most cases, property damage
resulting from accidents, far exceed the costs of injuries. Even less
obvious are the losses of process interruption, production delays, and
missed opportunities. Add to these the costs associated with
investigation, retraining, paperwork, overtime, etc., and the true effect
of loss on the organisation starts to become clearer.
Figure 3 illustrates the results of studies on the costs of loss.
Costs associated with injury, essentially workers’ compensation and other
medical costs, are significant, but are only the tip of the iceberg. The
vast majority of costs are below the waterline and consist of property
damage, downtime and administrative costs amongst others.
Figure 3
Can you afford to
ignore Loss Control in your organisation? If you would like more
information on the ThinkAbout Loss Control Program please contact
us.
