Boston, MA – Liberty Mutual Insurance recently released its 2026 Workplace Safety Index, revealing the leading causes and financial impact of the most serious workplace injuries in the US.
For over 25 years the Index has identified the top ten causes of workplace injuries – those causing an employee to miss more than five days of work – and ranked them by their medical and lost-wage payments.
Direct costs of the most disabling work-related injuries and illnesses equaled $58.74 billion, with the top 10 causes comprising 84.9%, or $49.9 billion of the total cost.
“The Workplace Safety Index continues to be an essential tool for business leaders seeking to protect their workforce and manage costs,” notes Dorothy Doyle, SVP and General Manager, Risk Control, Liberty Mutual.
“This year’s Index reminds us that while many of the leading causes of serious workplace injuries remain consistent, the landscape is always evolving — and so must our approach to prevention. With U.S. businesses spending nearly $59 billion on the direct costs of worker injuries, the data makes clear that proactive risk management isn’t optional; it’s a business imperative.”
Although the top four causes of loss remain the same from last year, there were three notable changes to this year’s WSI:
- First, slip or trip without fall moved up from its standard seventh-ranked position to the fifth spot.
- Second, caught in or compressed by equipment or objects fell off the list for the first time in the history of the WSI.
- Third, although intentional injury by person represented the top 10 from 2003-2012, it returns for the first time since then as the ninth-ranked cause of loss in this year’s WSI.
The report also notes that some changes could be due to changes in the coding of event types by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), and despite re-coding, suggests comparison to past years’ indexes is unadvised.
Liberty Mutual also produces eight industry-specific indices detailing injury causes and costs.
View the Index and industry specific reports: Liberty Mutual 2026 Workplace Safety Index
Source: Liberty Mutual