When something goes wrong in your business, do you have a way to keep track of it? Will all of the details be recorded, ensuring that you are protected from any potential liability?
Whether reporting an employee or customer injury, a defective product, property damage, or any other type of incident, it is extremely important for a business to be able to quickly and easily create incident reports. For best results, draft a template and use it consistently across the organization so that all incidents will have the same level of information and detail.
Here are four reasons your business needs incident reports.
Avoid lawsuits and settlements
In past years, courts have been awarding hundreds of thousands, or even millions, of dollars to victims in product liability, slip and fall, and similar cases where businesses are found to be negligent. Some customers even use this as their livelihood – exaggerating incidents and injuries in order to fraudulently profit from corporations.
However, there are some damages that are real, and these can be severe. Either scenario presents a dangerous financial situation to the business in question. Having a detailed incident report can be the difference between paying out a million dollars or more in an injury settlement.
Reduce fines and claims
When an incident occurs at your business, Occupational Health and Safety is informed and an inspector could be sent to the site to investigate the cause. Having a detailed incident report on file will show the organization that you have taken reasonable steps to mitigate risk, making it less likely that you will receive a fine.
You will also be able to dismiss false claims. By creating traceable data, you will be able to defend yourself against any potential claims a customer might submit in the future.
Receive lower insurance premiums
Any risk mitigation procedure, including tracking incidents and claims, can make insurers look upon your business in a more favorable light. If they can see that you are actively trying to prevent risk occurrences within your business, you will become a better customer. This can result in lower premiums and possible extra value-added services.
Identify trends and problem areas
Risk management is all about proactive behavior – taking steps to avoid behavior rather than reacting to events after they happen. However, how can you expect to take preventative action when you don’t know what’s actually going wrong?
You should start with a system to keep track of your incidents and compare them to each other – by location, time of day, employee, etc. It’s one thing to see claims costing you $100,000 per year; it’s another to realize that 50% of this cost is due to the same mistake, repeated over and over again.
One of the first places you can start working to identify potential problem areas is in your business’s physical security. Is your inventory protected from natural disaster, theft, and vandalism? Are your employees safe walking to their cars after closing up?
If you’re ready to evaluate your security needs, give Assured Protection a call today!
Assured Protection provides customized security in a multitude of different fashions – all tailored to fit the needs of the client. We pride ourselves on the personal touch that other companies are too big to provide. Assured Protection is local and has been part of the community for close to 20 years. When you contract with Assured Protection, you’ll receive customized services. In our business, one size does not fit all. We manage our personnel and make responsiveness to our client the number one goal. Give us a call at (443) 281-8391 to get started.
