The claim check is the visible cost. The invisible cost is coverage, investigation time, retraining, and disruption, and it usually exceeds the claim. This calculator prices the whole incident and flags the recordkeeping questions that follow.
This tool produces planning estimates. It is not a claims reserve, an OSHA recordability determination, or legal advice. Recordability and reportability decisions should follow OSHA's recordkeeping rules for your industry and situation.
Safety economics research has long observed that indirect costs scale with severity: roughly equal to direct costs for minor incidents, and 3 to 5 times direct costs for lost-time and serious injuries. Indirect costs are coverage labor, investigation and admin time, retraining, schedule disruption, morale, and premium impact.
Where you have real numbers, overtime coverage and investigation hours, the calculator uses them on top of the multiplier baseline so the estimate reflects your incident rather than an average.
Many employers with more than 10 employees must keep OSHA injury and illness records unless their industry is exempt. Lost time, restricted duty, and medical treatment beyond first aid all affect how an incident is recorded, and repeat similar incidents are exactly what an inspection looks for.
Because the claim only pays the injured worker's medical and indemnity. Everything else, the coverage labor, the supervisor's week, the retraining, the disrupted schedule, the experience-mod increase, lands on the employer directly and is rarely tallied.
Lost-time claims typically flow into your experience modifier, which raises premiums for three years. A single significant claim can cost more in premium impact than in direct cost, which is another reason prevention math usually wins.
Repeat incidents of the same type mean the cause was never actually corrected. They also change the compliance picture: a known, uncorrected hazard is what turns an incident into a citation or a serious-liability case.
This tool flags the questions but does not decide. Recordability turns on medical treatment beyond first aid, lost time, restricted duty, and other criteria under OSHA's recordkeeping rules. When in doubt, make the determination deliberately and document the reasoning.
Book a no-cost 30-minute consult. Bring your result, and leave with a straight read on the risk and a practical next step.