Boston — Ten widespread causes of office accidents and diseases accounted for about 80% of U.S. employers’ total injury costs in 2020, the most recent Liberty Mutual Workplace Safety Index reveals.
For the index, the insurer appeared at its personal info; custom-made information from the Bureau of Labor Statistics; and different information from the National Academy of Social Insurance.
Of the $58.6 billion total value to employers, $48.2 billion went towards the highest 10 causes of accidents and diseases. “Overexertion involving outside sources” (lifting heavy masses, for instance) was the most expensive kind of injury, making up 21% of the highest 10 accidents/diseases and costing employers greater than $12.8 billion in direct costs.
“BLS nonfatal injury data are analyzed with the Liberty Mutual data to determine which events caused employees to miss more than five days of work, and then to rank those events by workers’ compensation costs, which are then scaled to the NASI total cost,” a Liberty Mutual press launch states. “To capture accurate injury cost data, each index is based on data three years prior. Accordingly, the 2023 index reflects 2020 data.”
Rounding out the highest 10 costliest classes of accidents/diseases had been:
2. Falls on the identical degree ($9 billion)
3. Falls to a decrease degree ($6.1 billion)
4. Struck by object or tools ($5.1 billion)
5. Other exertions or bodily reactions ($3.7 billion)
6. Exposure to different dangerous substances ($3.4 billion)
7. Vehicle crashes ($2.6 billion)
8. Caught in or compressed by tools or objects ($2 billion)
9. Slip or journey with no fall ($1.9 billion)
10. Pedestrian vehicular incidents ($1.6 billion)
Exposure to different dangerous substances and pedestrian vehicular incidents made the index for the primary time.
“Pedestrian vehicular incidents were most evident in occupations such as sales and truck drivers, material movers, food service, distribution managers, retail salespersons, building cleaning and maintenance, and protective service,” the discharge states. “These occupations were likely to be impacted by the challenges that COVID-19 placed on the U.S. supply chain, as well as on industrial hygiene, security, and novel delivery or parking-lot operations.”
COVID-19 was additionally a big driver for “exposure to other harmful substances.” Without the consequences of the pandemic, that class would have ranked 18th, Liberty Mutual says.
