Incident Statistics - 2003 to 2013.

Discussion in 'Health and Safety Competitions' started by Change Agent, Sep 6, 2013.

  1. Change Agent

    Change Agent Guest

    "The Federated Employers Mutual Assurances (FEMA), compensation insurer for the Construction Industry, in their 2012 Annual Report declared a substantial reduction of accidents in the construction industry to the extend that FEMA paid merit rebates of more R96Million back to policy holders."

    Total accidents for the last 10 years:
    (FEMA)
    2003 7376 - lowest - Start of Construction regulations
    2004 8144
    2005 8943
    2006 9055
    2007 10500
    2008 10918 - highest
    2009 10376
    2010 9156
    2011 7958
    2012 8131 - only 755 more than 10 years ago.

    Total accidents in 10 years: 90 577

    Fatalities:
    2003 84
    2004 66
    2005 77
    2006 70
    2007 70
    2008 64
    2009 73
    2010 96 - highest
    2011 51 - lowest
    2012 69

    If we calculate the ratio of deaths as a percentage of total accidents:
    2003 1.14%
    2004 0.81%
    2005 0.86%
    2006 0.77%
    2007 0.67%
    2008 0.59%
    2009 0.70%
    2010 1.05%
    2011 0.64%
    2012 0.85%

    In the last 10 years, the construction industry contributed to the deaths of 720 people, affecting the lives of 3 240 individuals.
     
  2. Neels Nortje

    Neels Nortje Moderator

    "In the last 10 years, the construction industry contributed to the deaths of 720 people, affecting the lives of 3 240 individuals"

    This is not correct, it is in fact much higher. FEM is not the only compensation insurer for the Construction Industry. Also, you did not show the ratio between number of persons ensured vs. number of incidents over the 10 years.

    Thank goodness it is substantially less than killings on our roads which is around 14 000 deaths a year!
     
  3. Change Agent

    Change Agent Guest

    Neels

    With reference to "Also, you did not show the ratio between number of persons ensured vs. number of incidents over the 10 years."

    There are a number of reasons I ignored the ratio.
    1. The number of FEM insured persons increased from 150 000 in 2003 to 308 000 in 2012.
    2. If we take the hours of exposure (manhours worked) and calculate the DIFR we get a figure of 294.92 a apposed to the <5 we need for a NOSA 1 star rating (2012).
    3. The increase in insured persons with FEM is not an accurate indication as many companies moved over from the SACF to FEM in the last 4 years, due to the former's incompetence to issue letters of good standing and process claims.
    4. The SACF stats could not be included for the same reason and the accuracy is not up to standard.

    What is clear from the analysis is that the number of accidents have not decreased dramatically over the last 10 years.
    One can argue that the number of employees doubled up, but this is not a valid excuse.
    There are other variables that need to be considered as well, such as the performance of the industry within the fluctuations within the economy.

    Another aspect that distorts the stats, is the fact that most contractors employ casual / contract labour when the workload increase. These increases are seldom reflected in the Return of Earnings submitted to the FEM/SACF.

    Our only reliable measurement is number of fatalities vs number of claims, a number which continues to hover at an average of 0.81. Which mean that out of 100 accidents, one will be a fatality. Even this number can depend on claims processed vs claims submitted. With the SACF we know there is a huge difference.

    Elsewhere I made the statement that safety compliance standards are pathetic, and you disagreed, yet you admit that 14000 people are killed on our roads each year. Compliance is a national issue, not just in the workplace, but also en-route to the workplace or from the workplace to our loved ones.

    With this "big picture" we cannot pat ourselves on the back and think we are making a difference.

    Enjoy the rugby!
     
  4. Neels Nortje

    Neels Nortje Moderator

    Official response from FEM:

    It is dangerous and misleading to use only one dimension of a statistic such as accidents numbers in isolation. You are assuming that the number of employees has stayed constant which it has not. The number of employees in the industry has fluctuated over the past 10 years and has generally increased based on the StatsSA figures.

    From FEM’s perspective, the number of lives covered has almost tripled yet as you have commented the number of accidents are very similar. A more relevant statistic to look at would be accident frequency, which is the number of claims as a percentage of lives covered. When we discuss rebates paid to policyholders the relevant statistic would be loss ratios. Rebates are paid based on good claims experience as represented by loss ratio. Although there is a correlation between accident frequency and loss ratio it is not a direct correlation as clearly some accident are more expensive than others.

    The overall trend of increased rebate payments is clear and consequently this indicates a relative reduction in costs and indirectly a reduction in accidents. In the case of FEM’s policyholders and their employees (lives covered) both the accident frequencies and loss ratios (and even fatal frequencies) have been decreasing over the past 12 years. This is due to many factors but increased health and safety is one factor that is certainly evident. The table attached should give a more balanced view of the change in trend amongst FEM policyholders.

    Finally, Neels is correct FEM’s statistics does not cover the entire construction industry. The rest of the employees in the Construction industry are covered by the compensation fund and FEM’s statistics are therefore not representative of the entire industry. StatsSA indicated that the formal construction sector has around 600,000 employees with another 300,000-600,000 in potentially in the informal sector. The compensation funds class V classification (construction) is a little narrower than the statsSA definition of the construction industry and does not include the allied trades which are in a separate classification. This would mean that FEM covers around 50% or higher of the employees in class V and has the majority of the larger construction companies in the industry. FEM’s statistics would therefore give a reasonable representation of the injuries in the construction sector but it should clarified that it is not the entire industry.

    Gys Mac Intosh
    Chief Information Officer
    FEM
     

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