An accident is an unforeseen and unplanned event or circumstance, often with lack of intention or necessity. It may also be defined as an undesirable or unfortunate happening that occurs unintentionally and usually results in harm, injury, damage or loss, casualty.

Costs of Accidents:

As a matter of business survival, every contractor must understand the cost implications of a poor safety and health program.

The Direct Expense: Workers compensation insurance purchased by the employer usually is the principle device used to cover the direct expense of injury.

These include:

• Medical treatment
• Hospitalization where required
• Prescription drugs
• A weekly wage replacement sum
• Insurance company administrative costs and profit
• Rehabilitation expenses.

The Indirect Expense: It is found that indirect expenses are often more detrimental to the overall expense picture than direct expense. The Construction Industries Institute Safety Task Force found in earlier study that the indirect expense of injury ranged from 2 to 20 times the direct expense.

The hidden cost of accidents includes Damages to tools and equipment, Timely damaged equipment is out of service, Spoiled work, loss of production, Spoilage-fire, water, chemical, explosives etc. Failure to fill orders, overhead cost and miscellaneous-there are atleast 100 other items of cost that appear one or more times with every accident.