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Digital EditionUnderstanding the $58 Billion Problem: How the Top 10 Workplace Injuries Impact American Business
American businesses face a staggering financial burden from workplace injuries, with costs exceeding $58 billion annually according to Liberty Mutual Insurance’s 2025 Workplace Safety Index.
This landmark report, now in its 25th year, reveals the scale of the problem and its troubling persistence: the same injury types have dominated the rankings for more than two decades.
The Leading Causes of Workplace Injury
The 2025 Workplace Safety Index, produced by Liberty Mutual for its own use and that of its wholly owned third‑party administrator, Helmsman Management Services, identifies overexertion as the single-largest source of workplace injuries, costing businesses $13.70 billion annually—nearly a quarter of all injury-related expenses. These injuries, which include lifting, pushing, pulling, and carrying objects, represent 23.31% of total workplace injury costs.
Falls on the same level rank second, accounting for $10.52 billion in annual costs, or 17.89% of the total. This category has shown a particularly troubling trend over the past 25 years, nearly doubling from an average of $5.5 billion in the early 2000s to over $10 billion today.
The third through fifth positions reveal additional areas of concern. Being struck by objects or equipment costs businesses $5.81 billion annually, while falls to lower levels account for $5.78 billion. Other exertions or bodily reactions, including awkward postures from bending, reaching, and twisting, round out the top five at $3.90 billion.
Together, these top five injury causes represent 67.55% of all workplace injury costs—a concentration that highlights both the challenge and the opportunity for focused prevention efforts.
Understanding Loss Severity and Business Impact
The financial impact of workplace injuries extends far beyond the headline $58 billion figure. The index focuses specifically on injuries that cause employees to miss more than five days of work, representing the most severe and disruptive incidents to business operations.
The remaining causes in the top 10—roadway incidents ($2.84 billion), slips or trips without falls ($2.60 billion), caught in or compressed by equipment ($2.16 billion), repetitive motions ($1.83 billion), and struck against objects or equipment ($1.73 billion)—collectively account for another 19% of total costs. While individually smaller than the top five, these categories still represent billions of dollars in preventable losses.
One encouraging trend emerges from the 25-year data: repetitive motion injuries have declined significantly. Once ranking sixth with average costs of $2.7 billion in the early 2000s, these injuries now fluctuate between ninth and tenth place, averaging just $1.5 billion in recent years.
Building Effective Partnerships for Risk Mitigation
Addressing the $58 billion workplace injury problem requires collaboration between employers and their insurance carriers to develop comprehensive risk mitigation strategies. Modern approaches combine data analytics, systematic hazard identification, preventive engineering and process redesign, and training to target the most costly and frequent injury types.
Effective partnerships typically focus on three key areas. First, data-driven risk assessment helps identify patterns and trends specific to each workplace. By analyzing injury data alongside operational metrics, companies can pinpoint high-risk activities and times when injuries are most likely to occur.
Second is a prioritized focus for prevention through design by understanding how the environment, process, and people interact to create risks and then addressing those risks through engineering and process redesign.
Third, customized training programs address the specific hazards identified in the workplace. Rather than generic safety training, these programs focus on the actual risks employees face, with emphasis on the top injury causes relevant to each work environment.
It is also important to know that safety represents a process of continuous improvement to ensure that safety measures evolve with changing workplace conditions. Regular safety assessments, employee feedback mechanisms, and trend analysis from operational and safety data help organizations stay ahead of emerging risks.
For example, Liberty Mutual’s Risk Control Services help organizations systematically address the top 10 injury causes identified in the Workplace Safety Index and so much more, offering a holistic multiline view of risk. By combining the power of data with on- site collaboration and evidence-based assessment techniques and intervention strategies, Liberty Mutual helps businesses identify their specific vulnerabilities and implement targeted prevention strategies.
Technology also plays an increasingly important role in modern safety partnerships. Safety technologies such as computer vision operations monitoring, wearables, telematics, as well as Internet-of-Things infrastructure and equipment sensing can promote deeper insight through an evaluation of leading indicators. These data sources, tied to operations data as well as injury and incident outcomes, serve to proactively address work environments and processes that are putting workers at higher risk.
Looking ahead, the persistence of the same injury causes over 25 years suggests that incremental improvements to traditional safety programs may not be sufficient.
Organizations need to embrace comprehensive approaches that combine behavioral safety initiatives, engineering controls, and administrative measures tailored to their specific risk profiles.
For companies ready to address these persistent safety challenges, the potential benefits extend beyond cost reduction. Improved safety can enhance employee engagement, reduce turnover, improve productivity, and strengthen organizational reputation. &
