You have to give credit to the people at the Occupational Health and Safety Administration (OSHA). They handle issues daily that most of us hope to never encounter. Serious matters like third-degree burns, chemical poisoning, crushed limbs, amputations, asphyxiation…the list goes on. OSHA staff investigate, catalog, assess, and report on all these incidents with the same precision and detachment as their counterparts at the CIA or the IRS because there is a financial cost associated with every instance of workplace injury, illness, and death.

To help employers understand the economic impact of environmental health and safety accidents, OSHA has created a handy online application.

“$afety Pays” allows organizations to evaluate the financial impact of occupational injuries and illnesses on their profitability. Users can choose an injury type from a drop-down menu or input their workers’ compensation costs, enter their company’s profit margin, and see the estimated total cost associated with various injuries.

To explore this further, we decided to use the $afety Pays tool to assess whether some common workplace injuries truly cost as much as OSHA claims. Here’s a look at a few numbers, using OSHA’s default profit margin of 3%:

For an employee who suffers a fracture , an employer…

• can expect to see $54,856 in direct costs
  (which may or may not be paid by the employer, depending on the employer’s workers’ compensation insurance policy), and
• can expect to pay $60,341 in indirect costs
  (always paid for by the employer),
• for a total of $115,197 .That means the employer would need to at least generate
• $1,960,126 in sales to cover indirect costs ,
• or $3,839,900 to cover everything .

For an employee who suffers a concussion , an employer…

• can expect to see $54,571 in direct costs , and
• can expect to pay $60,028 in indirect costs ,
• for a total of $114,599 .
  That means the employer would need to at least generate
• $2,000,936 in sales to cover indirect costs ,
• or $3,819,966 to cover everything .

For an employee who suffers an amputation , an employer…

• can expect to see $96,003 in direct costs , and
• can expect to pay $105,603 in indirect costs ,
• for a total of $201,606 .
  That means the employer would need to at least generate
• $3,520,110 in sales to cover indirect costs ,
• or $6,720,200 to cover everything .

It’s going to be much cheaper to build that solid safety program!