You can be on Entrepreneur’s cover!

These Are the Most Common, and Expensive, Injuries at Work Serious or not, most injuries still come with a hefty bill for businesses.

By Lindsay Friedman

entrepreneur daily

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

Shutterstock

Being down on the job is never good, especially if being on the job is what caused it.

Businesses pay a hefty $170 billion bill per year dealing with workplace injuries and illnesses, according to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. Roughly 3 million workers a year in the U.S. private sector are injured, and the rate of injuries and illnesses remains highest among small and mid-sized companies.

Related: Even Virtual Offices Need Real Workplace Safety Policies

Overall, some of the common causes for injury was handling materials (32 percent), followed by slips or falls (16 percent) and being struck or colliding with an object (10 percent), according to Travelers, an insurance company, which analyzed 1.5 million claims over a five-year period. It then determined what injuries were most common, how they were caused and how much they cost.

Handling materials refers to an activity that might involve lifting, lowering, filling, emptying or carrying an item, and this category caused a whole range of injuries from strains, sprains, cuts, punctures, contusions or fractures.

You may think these types of injuries are caused by more-hands on jobs, such as construction. However, that's not the case, as manufacturing and retail environments actually saw more material-handling related injuries than any other industry.

Though the average sprain, fracture or puncture wound are among the most common injuries, more severe injuries such as amputations (for an average cost of $102,500), dislocation ($97,100), electric shock ($55,000), being crushed ($54,600) and multiple traumas ($50,000) find their way on companies' books.

Related: 5 Tips to Keep Comp Costs Down

Of course, the average injury is still costly. Incidents of sprains and strains, for example, could set a business back a whopping $17,000. A fracture? $42,400. A case of inflammation? Another $24,500.

Injuries are more common to people with less experience on the job: more than a quarter of incidents or injuries happen to people who've been on the job for less than a year, according to the National Federation of Independent Businesses.

As if the new guy wasn't having a hard enough time already.

Lindsay Friedman

Staff writer. Frequently covers franchise news and food trends.

Lindsay Friedman is a staff writer at Entrepreneur.com.

Want to be an Entrepreneur Leadership Network contributor? Apply now to join.

Editor's Pick

Business News

'Wildly Inappropriate': Woman Says She Was Denied a Job Because She Didn't Wear Makeup During the Interview

Melissa Weaver was applying for a VP of HR job at a tech company via video.

Business News

From Tom Brady to Kevin O'Leary – See Who Lost Big in the Wake of the FTX Crypto Collapse

The crash exposed an $8 billion hole in FTX's accounts, leaving investors and customers scrambling to recoup their funds.

Business News

Kevin O'Leary Says 'Do Not' Merge Finances, Bank Accounts With Your Spouse: 'I Forbid It in My Own Family'

The "Shark Tank" star stressed the importance of keeping your "own financial identity" in a relationship.

Business News

This Highly-Debated Piece of Cinematic History Just Sold For Over $700,000 at Auction

The wood panel from "Titanic" is often mistaken as a door. Either way, he couldn't have fit. (Sorry.)