Your premium can be reduced by 5% each year by having a workplace Safety Committee certified through the PA Department of Labor & Industry. For a current or a new safety committee to be certified, it must have a minimum of 4 members with at least 50 percent employee representation, and meet monthly for at least 6 months prior to application. All committee members must receive training in Safety Committee Operations, Hazard Identification/Inspections, and Accident Investigation. A Safety Committee involves the employees and management working together to identify hazards in the workplace and then working together to eliminate or control the hazards. Reducing hazards in the workplace can translate into fewer injuries, fewer claims, increased productivity, improved quality, and overall improved cooperation.

To assist companies that do not have a full-time safety person, RJR Safety Inc can be that safety person on a part-time basis performing such tasks as conducting safety meetings, facilitating safety committee meetings and activities, safety audits, program review, procedure development and review, training such as on forklifts, aerial lifts, lockout/tagout, HAZCOM, confined spaces, or emergency procedures. For some examples, I can be on-site for 2 hours a month to conduct safety meetings or construction job site surveys, or 4 hours a month to do safety meetings and facilitate the safety committee meeting or 8 hours per month to work on special projects with the safety committee, conduct safety audits, and special safety training, it really depends on what the client needs and desires.

Even with workers’ compensation insurance covering the medical expenses and the injured employee’s wages, there is substantial cost the company bears because these costs are not insurable. Such uninsured costs include lost production by the injured worker, the time that the Supervisor and fellow workers use to assist in the incident investigation, wages paid during lost production time, implement corrective actions, damaged/contaminated products, unhappy customers, training new employees, property damage, production schedule delays, overtime for current workers to cover for injured worker, and an increase in workers’ compensation insurance premiums, and these are just a few. The uninsured costs of an injury is approximately 3 times (conservative estimate) the insured costs. If the insured costs are $1,000.00 then the uninsured costs can be estimated at $3,000.00. The company has to “eat” the uninsured cost – decreasing profits.