How A Robust Health And Safety Policy Can Drive Insurance Costs Down And Profits Up.
As most business owners know, having strong health and safety practices in the workplace makes sound business sense. While benefits, such as reducing the risk of work-related accidents and ensuring the safety of your employees are obvious, you can also avoid the penalties associated with regulatory non-compliance and the legal costs resulting from a court case brought by an employee.
What’s more, better health and safety procedures means fewer incidents over the course of a year, which in turn means reduced downtime, higher productivity and less chance of missing a deadline. All of this can enhance your reputation as a supplier of choice, help you win more business and, ultimately, improve your bottom line.
But there’s another benefit that’s often ignored. Put a little extra effort into health and safety and you can significantly reduce your insurance costs.
Set a higher standard
Every business that employs workers has to meet the minimum health and safety standards laid down by the HSE with regards to safety of employees, equipment and facilities. While employer’s liability insurance is compulsory for most businesses, if you can prove you exceed the basic standards set by the HSE, then you could see your insurance premium fall substantially. Depending on the size and nature of your business, that could mean big savings for the business and added benefits in terms of operational reliability.
Reduce the risk, increase the benefits
Of course, not every business has the knowledge or resources needed to make sure they’re doing all they can to improve health and safety. Which is where organisations such as Live For Work can help.
When calculating your policy premium what an insurer will do is assess for risk. Anything you can do to alleviate perceived risk in this assessment will be seen in the form of a lower employer liability insurance premium.
There are many ways you can do this. For example, while it’s not compulsory to have a formally trained ‘first aider’ at work, if you do, it could mean a significant discount on your premiums – especially when you consider how little time and expense it takes to train a member of staff as a first aider. Furthermore, once trained, the role of ‘first aider at work’ makes very little impact on their regular duties. And, of course, there are the added benefits for the company in terms of having a trained first aider on hand – should an incident occur.
Why pay more?
In today’s competitive business market, having a strong H&S strategy can make a big difference to how successful you are. Talk to us for further ways on how you can reduce your insurance premiums and enhance productivity simply by implementing some simple changes to your health and safety policies.
