Tuesday 15th April 2014

Accidents & Emergencies – Quantifying Costs

If a major emergency were to occur tonight at your facility……how confident would you be of your management staff addressing the incident effectively as per your company’s policies and procedures whilst at the same time minimizing the costs associated with the Incident? For many organisations the cost of these incidents are largely very difficult to quantify, along with the unquantifiable cost of human life in the event of a major incident. Also, it is the scale of the and breadth of the costs across departments and add up that really affects the bottom line of a company. Below you will find a non exhaustive list of costs associated with the incidents, if you’d like to add to the list please contact me by email (available in the contact us section):

Insured Costs

These “Insured Costs” are largely dependent on the cover held by the organisation. They tend be more easily quantifiable and straight forward for a loss adjustor to assess. These include but are not limited to:

• Injuries & Associated Costs;
• Damage to Plant, Machinery & Equipment;
• Loss or Damage of Product;
• Injuries to Members of the Public;

Uninsured Costs

These “Uninsured Costs” are largely dependent on the cover held by the organisation. They tend be more difficult to quantify and on average can cost the organisation on there bottom line, by up to a factor of 10 against there insured costs. These include but are not limited to:

• Lost Production Time;
• Maintenance of Output Costs;
• Overtime & Temporary Labour;
• Investigation time/process;
• Administration Costs
• Additional Supervisors Time;
• Fines imposed by Regulators;
• Loss of Market Reputation;
• Loss of Corporate Image;

Non-tangible Costs

• Loss of Employee Morale
• Loss of expertise/experience
• Loss of “Peace of Mind”