Pub. 1 2020 Issue 2

Kentucky Trucker 19 KyTrucking.net No Hills Too Steep - No Ditches Too Deep We’ll Be On The Go – Rain Sleet Or Snow Tony’s Wrecker Service, Inc. Truck Repair ● Air Bag Recovery ● Landoll Transport Secure Storage ● Crane Service ● Long Distance Towing Fleet Management ● Equipment Sales PH 502-426-4100 FAX 502-425-4050 tonyswreckerservice.com Louisville’s Oldest Wrecker Service with over 80 years of Towing and Recovery Engineering • The company may have to pay attorneys. • Revenue is lost, and replacing it costs more than the amount lost. According to the National Safety Council’s Injury Facts website, estimated work injury costs in 2017 totaled $161.5 billion. • The amount per worker was $1,100. This amount is the offset cost — that is, the value of goods or services that has to be produced to offset the cost of work injuries. It isn’t the average cost of the work-related injury itself. • The amount per death was $1,150,000. • The amount per injury involving medical profes- sionals was $39,000. What’s the breakdown for the $161.5 billion? • Administrative expenses ($52.0 billion). • Wage and productivity losses ($50.7 billion). • Medical expenses ($34.3 billion). • Employers’ uninsured costs, such as the value of time lost by other employees and the cost of inves- tigations and reports ($12.4 billion). • Losses caused by fire ($7.3 billion). • Automobile damage ($4.9 billion). On the same website page, the page includes a graphic showing time lost due to work-related injuries. The total number of days lost in 2017 was 104 million. Seventy million of those days were for injuries that took place in 2017. The remaining 34 million days were caused by injuries that took place before 2017. The estimated number of days that would be lost after 2017 was 55 million. The estimates don’t include people who were injured but not disabled, and it also doesn’t include additional people who were directly or indi- rectly involved in the accidents. According to records from the Bureau of Labor Sta- tistics for 2012, Kentucky had higher injury, illness, and fatality rates than the rest of the U.S. The injury or illness rate per 100,000 workers in Kentucky was 4.1. The national rate was 3.4. For fatalities, the national fatality rate per 100,000 workers was 3.5. In contrast, the Kentucky Fatality Assessment and Control Eval- uation reported a rate of 4.6. The same organization broke down the fatalities by type of incident, and the category with the largest number of fatalities (28) was motor vehicle crashes; the next two highest catego- ries, with nine fatalities each, were caused by suicide and falls. The three most dangerous occupations in Kentucky, measured by work-related fatalities, were transportation and material moving (25), manage- ment, including farming (18), and construction and extraction (14). That’s why the Kentucky Trucking Association has decided safety programs are so important in Kentucky. The cost of an accident, and its impact on a company, has a direct effect on the company’s profit margin. Profit margins generally are between 1-5%. The higher the margin, the lower the replacement revenue. For example, suppose the yearly injury costs $1,000. If the profit margin is 1%, it would take $100,000 to cover that $1,000 loss. If the profit margin is 5%, that number drops to a still-expensive $20,000. Keep in mind this is money that has to be earned in addition to the regular revenue a company makes. How can a company pay for an injury? The company can find ways to lower workers’ compensation insur- ance or to increase profits, especially by decreasing continued on page 20