Floor Mat Dirty Facts: Slips & Falls

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As part of our Dirty Facts blog post series, below are the latest research findings and statistics related to the impact of slips and falls on the health of your employees, customers and others.

Expense

• The average slip-and-fall claim is $4,000 (NFSI)
• The average cost of a slip-related injury exceeds $12,000 (Wausau Insurance Co.)
• The average cost to defend against a slip-and-fall lawsuit is $50,000 (NFSI)
• Fall-related medical expenses cost Americans more than $20 billion each year; projections show these expenses will climb to more than $32 billion over the next 20 years (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention)
• For every dollar spent on floor maintenance products, the average supermarket will spend $3 paying for slip and fall accidents (NFSI)
• Preventing workplace injuries makes it easier for a company to reach its financial goals. For example, a company with $100,000 of costs related to workplace injuries will have to produce an additional $2 million in revenue just to cover the expense, assuming a 5% profit margin. (Liberty Mutual)

Age

• “There are 34 million Americans over the age of 60” – a person age 65 or older is 10 times more likely to be the victim of a debilitating slip-and-fall accident than a person under 30 (National Floor Safety Institute)
• 60% of fall-related deaths occur among people 65 and older and falls are the No. 1 cause of injury-related death for males 80 and older and for females 75 and older (NSC)
• The world’s population age 65 and older is growing by an unprecedented 800,000 people a month (U.S. Census Bureau)
• Slips and falls are the leading cause of accidental death for people over the age of 75 and is estimated to cost society more than $60 billion annually (National Floor Safety Institute)

Food Chain

• In the US each year, an average of 7.75 claims per 1 million supermarket customers are filed due to slips and falls (Food Marketing Institute)
• Grocery stores around the country spend $450 million annually to defend slip-and-fall claims; the average slip-and-fall claim nationwide is for $3,900, while the cost to litigate a lawsuit has reached $100,000 (NFSI)
• Approximately 25,000 people a day are victims of slip-and-fall accidents; the expense resulting from these injuries is running $3.5 million per hour, every hour of the day every day of the year, which is well over $30 billion per year (National Safety Council)
• The average restaurant has 3-9 slip/fall accidents each year (NSC)
• The food service industry’s leading cause of employee injury is slipping and falling (Liberty Mutual)

Hazards

• Annually, there are over 12 million injuries caused by falls requiring at least one day of medical attention; two-thirds of the falls happened at the floor level (National Safety Council)
• 9 out of 10 slip-and-fall incidents occur on wet surfaces (Professional Retail Store Maintenance)
• The flooring material, floor hazards or improper maintenance accounts for approximately 50% of slip-and-fall accidents (NFSI)
• Slip-and-fall accidents most often occur on wet or dirty surfaces; slips, trips and falls are the leading cause of occupational accidents and result in more than 300,000 disabling injuries each year (National Safety Council)

Health

• The number one killer in the workplace is slips and falls, which kill more workers than fire, chemicals and electrocution combined (National Safety Council)
• Falls caused or led to over 15,400 deaths in America per year (NSC)
• Falls are the second leading cause of accidental death and percentage-wise, it is growing three times faster than any other cause (National Safety Council)
• More than 1 million people suffer an injury from a slip, trip or fall in the U.S. each year; over 11,000 people die as a result of falls alone and slips, trips and falls account for 15 to 20% of all workers compensation costs (Professional Retail Store Maintenance)
• Over 30% of worker injuries are slip-related (Wausau Insurance Co.)
• Every year there are more than 12 million slip-and-fall accidents in the US, resulting in more than 100,000 disabling injuries annually (NSC)
• The 10 leading causes of disabling workplace injuries account for 86% of the estimated $40 billion in wage and medical payments made to workers injured on the job per year; the total financial impact of both direct and indirect costs (lost productivity, overtime, etc.) is estimated to be as much as $240 billion (Liberty Mutual)
• “Four thousand people die from falling over on the same level on the job” (Tom Leamon, Vice President of Liberty Mutual)

Retail

• Walmart stores receive 100 million visitors a week and the retailer gets sued almost once every two hours every day of the year, many of which are slip-and-fall related (USA Today)
• The retail industry has the highest incidence of “same level” falls when compared with all other industries; these types of claims account for approximately 17.1% of worker’s compensation claims (Liberty Mutual Research Center for Safety and Health)

Ergonomics

• Standing fatigue is not just a matter of personal discomfort. It also causes physical injury, costing employers time, productivity and money (National Safety Council)
• Workers who stood on anti-fatigue mats were able to reduce the level of fatigue and discomfort by as much as 50% (Mark Redfern, Ergonomist at the Center of Ergonomics at the University of Michigan)
• Productivity drops by 33% for a person standing 8 hours on a concrete floor; standing on an anti-fatigue mat increases productivity by 20-50% (OSHA)

Benefits of Mat Rentals

• We purchase the mats for our customers
• We exchange dirty mats with clean mats on a weekly or every other week basis
• We clean the mats through an industrial laundry process; unless cleaned properly, mats actually become saturated with dirt and vacuuming only removes 10% of the dirt and this dirt eventually becomes airborne and can contribute to health issues and electronic equipment failure
• As mats wear out, we replace them at no additional cost to our customers
• We have a variety of colors and sizes to choose from and customers can personalize mats with their logo and/or unique message

What more do you need to know about floor mats and dangerous slips and falls?

Contact us for a rental quote for custom, logo and rubber floor mats and/or door mats today