Workplace injuries are declining, but costs are climbing, Travelers report finds
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Due in part to changing workforce demographics, costs associated with workplace injuries are climbing, even while the number of injuries continues to decline, according to a June 3 report from workers' compensation insurer Travelers.
The report compared workers compensation data from the five years leading up to the Covid pandemic, 2015 to 2019, with data from the five years since, 2020 to 2024. Three cost-related trends emerged: Increasing retirement ages, ongoing employee turnover and longer injury recovery times, Rich Ives, Travelers senior VP of business insurance claims, said in a press release.
To help prevent workplace injuries and manage employee safety, businesses should focus on three key areas: onboarding and training to establish safe work practices; creating a culture of safety by supporting and engaging employees; and managing workplace accidents and injuries, Travelers said.
One of the factors affecting workplace injuries has been a continuous job churn over the past five years, Travelers noted. This has created a steady stream of new employees — a group considered among the most vulnerable to injury, the company said.
In particular, its research found workplace injuries during a worker's first year on the job comprised 36% of all workplace injuries over the past five years, up from the 34% recorded during the period between 2015 and 2019.
There's also been a slight increase in claims by employees aged 50 and older, the study found. 'This trend is significant because older employees — while typically injured less frequently than their younger counterparts — tend to require longer recovery times and have more costly claims,' Travelers said.
Across the board, from 2020 to 2024, employees missed an average of 80 workdays per injury, an increase of more than seven days when compared with the previous five-year period, according to Travelers' analysis of more than 2.6 million claims submitted over the past decade.
Employers can act proactively to reduce injury risk with onboarding programs that educate employees on appropriate safety procedures and safeguards, such as where emergency exits or eye wash stations are located, Travelers explained in an earlier report.
Orientation — as well as training when roles change or for employees returning to work from injuries — should also be skills-based, meaning that it provides actual hands-on training on how to safely perform a task, the report said. Travelers added that employers should include in their safety programs awareness-based training, which emphasizes general safety policies, hazard recognition and how to report an injury or unsafe condition.
The combined focus on skills- and awareness-based training 'gives employees tactical knowledge and cultural awareness of why safe practices are important,' Travelers said.
Additionally, employers should have policies and employee training in place on how to handle customer hostility — which has been on the rise in recent years, according to a 2022 Axonify report — as well as workplace harassment, particularly harassment outside categories protected by civil rights laws such as inappropriate boundary violations, experts previously told HR Dive. Such policies may include protocols for mitigating different levels of customer-facing and internal harassment, from annoying to physically dangerous.
Another factor to keep in mind is that employees may face different risks depending, for example, on characteristics such as gender or physical limitations, the National Safety Council said in a 2024 report. Workplace injury prevention programs that incorporate principles of diversity and inclusion can reduce these risks and create a more effective culture of safety, the report found.
For instance, personal protective equipment traditionally has been designed to fit the average White male, NSC said. But this can result in women and nonbinary and transgender employees having incorrectly sized PPE, which can increase injuries. NSC's report also noted that Black and Hispanic workers expressed the most unease about reporting unsafe working conditions and recommended that employers ensure all workers feel comfortable reporting safety issues as part of their priorities around inclusion.
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