Death by a thousand cuts

Health and safety incidents have become the leading financial loss drivers for businesses around the globe, according to the annual BCI 2019 Horizon Scan Report.

Analysis by BCI found that of 569 organisations surveyed, they had cumulatively incurred costs of £1.186 billion from health and safety incidents, and losses which amounted to more than 7% of turnover.

Based on these numbers, we can extrapolate that the average turnover of the cohort was £28 million, leading to an average claim of just under £2 million per organisation!

In light of this, it’s a worry that organisations report being most concerned about high-impact events, including cyber-attacks, IT outages and extreme weather.  They should pay more heed to the fact that other “lesser” incidents occur more often and have cumulatively greater consequences to the bottom line.

Not only that, organisations should consider the impact of increasingly heavy fines, loss of reputation and damage to their brand.

Howard Kerr, Chief Executive at BSI, commented: “It is easy for leaders to be kept awake at night by high-profile risks, but they must not ignore the smaller, more frequent risks that steadily erode the bottom line.”