No-one likes to face the music, but notifiable incidents in the workplace are serious business and only one of many things that can attract a significant fine for your company.
If a work-related death, serious injury, illness, or dangerous incident occurs, you have to alert the relevant authorities – as soon as possible.
In most jurisdictions, a maximum fine in the region of $50,000 will apply to a business who doesn’t immediately notify the regulator about a notifiable incident.
Individuals, meanwhile, can be looking at personal liability of up to $10,000 – or in WA, an eye-watering $25,000 (never let it be said West Australians do things by half measures).
Tragic incidents that involve death or very serious injury will invariably be notified. But what about the many near misses that take place each day, all over the country? From micro sleeps on the road, to guards getting robbed and being hurt.
It’s probably safe to say that not everything is notified to the relevant regulator that should be. But your workers have the right to let the authorities know about these close calls too. And so do members of the public…
What do you think? As a passer – by would you report an unsafe act? There is not a legal obligation on you to do so, of course. But it’s a useful reminder of who might be watching you carry out work, and may believe they have witnessed a dangerous incident.
Some people shrug and walk on – that’s often the herd mentality. But some don’t.
If you ended up in the court house could your business pay fines of $50,000? If not then asking about Statutory Liability Insurance might give you peace of mind that if anything ever happened that your company received a fine for, it won’t put you under financial stress or even force the closure of your business.
Some cases which have appeared in relation to workplace fines and incidents recently include:
- Worker was unable to walk again after lifting goods at work weighing in excess of 20kg. For doing no risk assessment the employer was fined $100,000
- A risk assessment failed to identify a serious risk and the resulting fire injured two workers, (one a contractor). Both employers were fined, one $185,000 and the other $ 125,000
Both of these fines would have been paid if the employers had Statutory Liability Insurance on their policies.
Following a few more recent headlines:
- Major Employer fined $70,000 for safety breaches
- Victorian Employer fined $42,000 for allowing worker to wear gloves
- Security Company fined $40,000 for underpaying a Gold Coast security guard $7632 between November, 2013 and February, 2014.
- A Sydney security company has been fined $150,000 following the death of a security guard in 2011
From the most ridiculous and unbelievable claims to the serious and saddening claims, we have seen them all float over our desks. With a deep understanding and a working knowledge of the Security Industry, we would be pleased to help you find the best policy to cover your security company, in whatever capacity of security that you do.
Although workplace safety fines are just one of the things that having Statutory Liability Insurance cover can pay for you, it can also pay any other fines that you receive from statutory authorities for things as simple as your guards not displaying licenses correctly, not having the correct signage, not having your incident register or crowd control register in the correct location or any of the myriad of different penalties that seem to be unique to the security industry.
Contact us with any enquiries and see how we can help you to choose the best policy for your operations, including Statutory Liability Insurance.
