Creating a Loss Control Safety Plan

When it comes to your business, minimizing loss should be high on your list. In fact, it should be right up there with maximizing your profits. As a business owner, you have a lot on your plate, from customer needs to managing the day to day, which is why it can be easy to overlook the importance of a safety program that’ll help minimize loss.

An effective loss control safety plan helps protect your employees, assets and keep your business goals on track. Because a supported safety culture moderates the frequency and severity of potential losses, it can reduce claims filed and insurance premiums from rising. And, at the end of the day, businesses that are safer, who manage risk more efficiently and control their losses are more profitable.

What Is Loss Control?

At its core, loss control is about you, the employer, caring about your employees and their safety. A loss control and risk management program seeks to reduce potential losses that could occur at your customer’s place of business, mitigation/damage control during an incident, claims management, recovering from the loss once it has occurred, and reviewing and implementing ways to prevent reoccurrence. This is done by analyzing potential hazards and risks in the workplace, implementing controls, practices, policies and training for employees on these best safety practices. A loss control program can start small and evolve over time.

Why Does My Business Need a Loss Control Safety Plan?

A strategic approach to mitigate risks benefits your business in more ways than one:

Creates a safer work environment
Reduces illnesses, injuries and fatalities
Decreases workers’ compensation
Improves relations between labor and management
Lowers turnover rate
Increases productivity

To develop these results, an effective loss control program begins with commitment from management to provide a safety plan and hold everyone, from employees to leadership, accountable.

There are five main sections in a loss control safety program:

Hazard Analysis
Employee Education
Emergency Planning
Inspections
Accident Investigation

1. Hazard Analysis

A hazard analysis creates the groundwork for your prevention efforts, since the assessment helps you identify areas to mitigate or eliminate potential risks. Your business’s hazard analysis should be conducted by a person or safety committee designated to manage your company’s loss control program. They’ll perform routine worksite evaluations and prepare job hazard analysis reports that identify risks and courses of action to correct any issues.

Using this table, you can create a job hazards analysis that breaks the complicated job down into a series of simple steps, which then can be studied and analyzed to discover potential injuries and illnesses that could occur.

Choose your Hazard Analysis approach:

You can complete the analysis using one or more of these four approaches:

By tool, machine or piece of equipment. This is probably the simplest approach, and would apply to the tool that is used by a number of employees.

By individual job. This is the most common procedure and is extremely effective. Break the job down into a series of simple steps, each to be studied and analyzed.

By job classification. This would apply to such classifications as electricians, painters, plumbers, etc., where the same type of job is done in different areas. The tools and methods remain comparatively constant, while the degree and type of hazard are apt to vary from job to job.

By department. The approach here is to break the department down into groups of jobs that are all alike, or nearly alike, and then analyze these job groups.

2. Employee Education Programs

Creating a culture of safety starts with informing your employees. The below resources provide educational articles, guides, checklists, logs and safety modules that assist in supporting your safety plan.

Loss & risk control resource center. From safe practices for auto and fleet to best practices for employee safety, our loss control resource center helps our policyholders reduce claims and losses by providing informative and instructive safety and risk management information. Find helpful information in the loss control resource center.

Loss control PureSafety modules. American Family’s PureSafety on Demand provides convenient safety training content that’s available 24-7. Explore PureSafety on Demand

3. Emergency Planning

Now that you’ve identified existing and potential hazards, you’ll create an emergency plan to help prevent or control them. Plans can be described as action guides, response plans or emergency management plans.

Action guides. These are usually in a checklist format listing the step that need to be accomplished when an event happens. An action guide generally outlines the company personnel and outside agencies to call, what information to collect, and what actions to take. These guides are usually part of a more comprehensive emergency management plan.

Response plan. Also called contingency plans, a response plan describe in more detail the steps listed in the action guides. Response plans typically provide more information on the actions that must be implemented to limit damage from an emergency and do not deal with pre-emergency or recovery planning.

Emergency management plan. This is a more comprehensive document that includes the action guides and response plans. An emergency management plan describes the methods used to prevent emergencies, actions when event happens, activities needed to keep the organization operational, and steps to bring the company back to full operation.

1. Select/appoint an individual to be responsible for coordinating the preplanning efforts.

2. Identify the emergencies that are likely to threaten the workplace and its employees. (e.g. terrorism; bomb threats; natural disasters, like hurricanes, tornadoes or floods; fires; workplace violence; or hazardous chemical spills)

3. Choose one or separate plans from above for each exposure.

4. Build a list that includes: organization names, addresses, phone numbers, email addresses, along with points of contact names of emergency response resources.

5. Draft the plan(s), covering prevention, preparedness, response and recover issues.

6. Develop a list of the equipment that may be needed, such as first aid kits, tarps (e.g. to protect equipment from water damage), flashlights, batteries, etc.

7. Include methods that can be used to test and update the plan as needed.

4. Inspections

Inspections are used to help identify if new hazards or potential liabilities have developed. Inspections can also be used to ensure policies and procedures are being followed. They can be in the form of a check list and reviewed by management to ensure issues are corrected. A great example of a check list is for the life safety concerns in your workplace (fire exits clear, fire extinguishers are mounted and not discharged, first-aid cabinets are stocked, eye wash clear and stations are accessible, etc.)

5. Accident Investigation

A good accident investigation can assist you and others in understanding root causes and contributing factors of an incident. The overall purpose is to not place blame, but to provide a clear understanding of what and how the incident occurred, allowing you to implement preventive measures to reduce the likelihood of reoccurrences.

Accident investigations should be filled out after all reported incidents and near-miss opportunities. The accident investigation should also require a review of the company hazard analysis to find out if the assessment covered the now-realized hazard. Questions should answer who, what, where, when and how. It’s usually best to use a formal written investigation form. Don’t forget to take pictures of the accident area, damages and corrective actions.

Use our incident investigation reporting sheet in the event of an accident investigation.

Corrective actions should be followed up upon and documented, but it doesn’t necessarily mean employee discipline. It can also be a measure to implement a new policy, additional training for management and employees, a new procedure for completing work tasks, additional personal protection, a review of all like equipment to see if the hazard might exist, etc. Contact your agent or loss control services if you need assistance with accident investigations, and don’t be afraid to share your internal investigation with your claims representative.

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