EH&S Insider Blog

According to OSHA, employers must "...record and report work-related fatalities, injuries, and illnesses." Standard 29 CFR Part 1904.5 gives details about how to determine whether an illness/injury was work-related. This has always been somewhat complicated, as there are a variety of circumstances that can create gray areas about how or when an employee was injured or taken ill.  Given the fast-spreading nature of COVID-19, OSHA recognized the difficulty in determining whether an employee contracted the disease at work. In April, the organization issued a memorandum about when companies should report COVID-19 cases among their employees. At the end of May, OSHA made an important update.

  (EMR) Experience Modification Rate: Explained An Experience Modification Rate (EMR) has a significant impact on the worker's compensation insurance premium of a business. The EMR is a metric that insurers use to calculate worker's compensation premiums; it takes into account the number of claims/injuries a company has had in the past and their corresponding costs. An EMR of 1.0 is the benchmark average -- if your company's EMR number is lower than average, (e.g. less than 1.0), your worker's compensation premium will be lower than average. An EMR number greater than 1.0 will result in a higher than average premium.