How do restaurants reduce slip-and-fall claims?
Three things: a pre-service check at every store, a same-day rule for any injury, and a monthly count of injuries by store. Cuts are the most common restaurant injury, and falls cost about four and a half times more per claim, because a fall is the injury that takes someone out for weeks. Winter falls run about 25 percent above summer, and the places are the same: the dish pit, the walk-in door, the back door when there is ice, and the line when a mat is up.
Which injury costs the most
Cuts are the most common restaurant injury. Falls happen less often and cost about four and a half times more per claim, because a fall is the injury that takes someone out for weeks. Across all industries, an injured worker misses about 80 days on average; that figure is not restaurant-specific, and a cut usually heals faster than that. A fall is the restaurant injury that takes a cook out for a month or more, and every week out is a week of shifts covered by overtime, by the manager, or by the next new hire.
Winter falls run about 25 percent above summer, and the winter window opens in late October. The places are the same at every store: the dish pit, the walk-in door, the back door when there is ice, and the line when a mat has been pulled up to mop.
The pre-service check, front and back of house
One check at every store, run by the GM before every service, and set by the owner for the group rather than left to each store to decide. Slip-resistant shoes on everyone, front and back of house, checked at the door. Mats in the dish pit and on the line, and back on the floor after the mop. The back door and the walk-in threshold looked at, and ice and snow logged when it is on the ground. None of it costs real money, and it is aimed at the fall, the most expensive claim a restaurant has.
A logged floor check also defends the claim if someone does fall. The operating habits that keep a program's price down, the floor log among them, are the last section of Insurance through a build-out.
The same-day rule
An injured employee is seen at a clinic the same day, and the injury is reported to the agent the same day. The GM does not decide whether it is bad enough. A claim handled on day one is far more likely to stay a medical-only claim: treated, closed, the employee back on the line. A claim where the employee misses work pays wages as well as medical bills, often brings in a lawyer, and stays in the group's workers' comp number for three years.
Then work with the injured employee on whatever the doctor clears: prep, inventory, the host stand, the office. A group has those jobs, and a single restaurant often does not. The employee stays on payroll instead of on lost-time wages, and the claim closes smaller. Ask the agent how the carrier handles modified duty before it is needed.
Count injuries by store, every month
Every store has new people, and the stores where the check and the same-day rule are followed have fewer injuries anyway. So a store with more injuries than the others is saying something a GM's report will not: the check exists on paper there and not on the floor. That is the store to walk. Under common ownership one experience number prices every store in the group, so one store's falls raise the premium at all of them: What is a good experience mod for a restaurant?
At the stores with the most claims, put injuries on the GM scorecard with two measures: injuries down against last year and the pre-service check done, paid together. A bonus for zero injuries alone becomes a reason not to report one, and an injury that goes unreported for a week is how a small claim becomes a large one. Ask the agent for the carrier's loss-control visit at the store with the most claims; most carriers offer one at no charge, and a safety specialist walks the kitchen and writes up what to fix.
Guests fall on the same floors
A guest's fall is a general liability claim rather than a workers' comp claim, and the market has been pricing them higher: claims that were once small now routinely settle in the high six figures and above. The same shoes, the same mats and the same logged floor check are the answer on that side too, with a written plan for the night it happens: an incident form, photos, witness names, the camera footage saved, and the agent told the same day.
The one-night helper on a busy December floor is an employee for workers' comp purposes in most states, and the same-day rule applies to that person too: Does workers' comp apply to workers paid in cash? We have put the injury program on one page to hand to a GM, with the sign-off sheet for the four tasks that produce most cuts and burns. Email info@proofrestaurantinsurance.com and we will send it over.