2
a medical-only finger laceration, $28,440 for a mean cost
of a lost-time lower back sprain, to more than a $69,000
mean cost for a lost-time shoulder strain. The Safety Pays
in Mining web application can be found on the NIOSH
Mining Website at: www.cdc.gov/niosh/mining/content/
economics/safetypays.html.
METHODS OF APP DEVELOPMENT
There are four sections in the Safety Pays in Mining v2.0
application, including:
• Most Common Injuries and Work Activities for
2022
• What is the Cost of Occupational Injury?
• What is the Impact of the Cost of Occupational
Injury on Your Company?
• How Could Your Company Spend the Savings from
Preventing Injury?
The methods for developing each of these sections are
described next.
Most Common Injuries and Work Activities for 2022
The Mine Safety and Health Administration’s (MSHA)
accident/injury/illness file for 2022 (National Institute for
Occupational Safety and Health, 2023) was used to cal-
culate the most common injury types and to identify the
activities miners were performing when injured. This data-
set includes all the injuries reported to MSHA in 2022. The
injury data was sorted by commodity and then by: (1) the
most frequent Mine worker activities during which a miner
was injured and (2) common injuries, which is Part of body
cross tabulated with Nature of injury to identify specific
types of injuries.
What is the Cost of Occupational Injury?
Direct cost in Safety Pays in Mining is the cost of work-
ers’ compensation claims for a specific injury and includes
medical expenses and indemnity for wage loss. The direct
costs are presented by claim type (medical-only or lost-
time injuries) and are represented as a mean cost and 25th,
50th (median), 75th, 90th, and 95th percentile costs.
Costs can be selected by injury category which includes
the part of body injured, the nature of injury, cause of
injury, or selected combinations of part/nature/and cause.
These selections are based off the Workers’ Compensation
Insurance Organizations (WCIO) injury description tables
(www.wcio.org/injury-description-tables).
This data is based on the cost of mining-related workers’
compensation insurance claims in the National Council on
Compensation Insurance, Inc. (NCCI) system for policy
years 2012 to 2015 (Heberger &Wurzelbacher, 2024).
NCCI manages the nation’s largest database of workers
compensation insurance information. NCCI is a licensed
rating and statistical organization providing to 35 states
(and the District of Columbia) and collects a set of Workers’
Compensation (WC) claims data from carrier-insured (pri-
vate and state-funded) employers in these states. The NCCI
data does not include claims from self-insured employers
((National Council on Compensation Insurance (NCCI),
2021)). The NCCI provides analysis of WC claim costs to
guide the setting of rates/loss costs by insurance companies.
NCCI analyzes industry trends, prepares workers compen-
sation insurance rate recommendations, determines the
cost of proposed legislation, and provides a variety of ser-
vices and tools to maintain a healthy workers’ compensa-
tion system (National Council on Compensation Insurance
(NCCI), 2023). Certain types of information and data con-
tained in this research article has been provided by NCCI
to NIOSH in support of NIOSH research initiatives. The
views and conclusions contained in this article are those of
the authors and should not be interpreted as representing
the opinions of NCCI, and NCCI makes no guarantees
nor assumes responsibility for the accuracy of any results
obtained through the use of the NCCI data.
NCCI agreed to share with NIOSH aggregated min-
ing-related WC claims data from 2012–2015 for 35 states.
The dataset grouped claims by type: Medical-Only and
Lost-Time Non-Fatal injuries. The definition of Lost-Time
varies by state from four or more to eight or more days away
from work in U.S. states’ WC systems (Utterback, Meyers,
&Wurzelbacher, 2014). Medical-Only claims include only
medical costs, while Lost-Time claims normally include
both medical and indemnity costs. The NCCI dataset only
includes claims that have been accepted for payment.
The cost data are incurred costs of medical treatments
and indemnity for lost wages due to temporary and perma-
nent disability. Incurred costs include both paid costs and
reserves for anticipated future costs. Costs were valued as of
the fifth report, which is provided approximately five and
a half years after the policy year of injury. At the time of
data receipt from NCCI, the 2012–2015 data had full fifth
report development. All costs are nominal, as no inflation
adjustments were applied.
Only non-zero cost injury types (diagnosis) with more
than 50 cases were included. A total of 35,967 mining-
related claims were included in the analysis with 21,223
medical only non-fatal injury claims and 14,744 lost-time
non-fatal injury claims. The medical-only claims include
injuries that only had medical-related payments with no
time away from work. Lost-time claims include the medical
a medical-only finger laceration, $28,440 for a mean cost
of a lost-time lower back sprain, to more than a $69,000
mean cost for a lost-time shoulder strain. The Safety Pays
in Mining web application can be found on the NIOSH
Mining Website at: www.cdc.gov/niosh/mining/content/
economics/safetypays.html.
METHODS OF APP DEVELOPMENT
There are four sections in the Safety Pays in Mining v2.0
application, including:
• Most Common Injuries and Work Activities for
2022
• What is the Cost of Occupational Injury?
• What is the Impact of the Cost of Occupational
Injury on Your Company?
• How Could Your Company Spend the Savings from
Preventing Injury?
The methods for developing each of these sections are
described next.
Most Common Injuries and Work Activities for 2022
The Mine Safety and Health Administration’s (MSHA)
accident/injury/illness file for 2022 (National Institute for
Occupational Safety and Health, 2023) was used to cal-
culate the most common injury types and to identify the
activities miners were performing when injured. This data-
set includes all the injuries reported to MSHA in 2022. The
injury data was sorted by commodity and then by: (1) the
most frequent Mine worker activities during which a miner
was injured and (2) common injuries, which is Part of body
cross tabulated with Nature of injury to identify specific
types of injuries.
What is the Cost of Occupational Injury?
Direct cost in Safety Pays in Mining is the cost of work-
ers’ compensation claims for a specific injury and includes
medical expenses and indemnity for wage loss. The direct
costs are presented by claim type (medical-only or lost-
time injuries) and are represented as a mean cost and 25th,
50th (median), 75th, 90th, and 95th percentile costs.
Costs can be selected by injury category which includes
the part of body injured, the nature of injury, cause of
injury, or selected combinations of part/nature/and cause.
These selections are based off the Workers’ Compensation
Insurance Organizations (WCIO) injury description tables
(www.wcio.org/injury-description-tables).
This data is based on the cost of mining-related workers’
compensation insurance claims in the National Council on
Compensation Insurance, Inc. (NCCI) system for policy
years 2012 to 2015 (Heberger &Wurzelbacher, 2024).
NCCI manages the nation’s largest database of workers
compensation insurance information. NCCI is a licensed
rating and statistical organization providing to 35 states
(and the District of Columbia) and collects a set of Workers’
Compensation (WC) claims data from carrier-insured (pri-
vate and state-funded) employers in these states. The NCCI
data does not include claims from self-insured employers
((National Council on Compensation Insurance (NCCI),
2021)). The NCCI provides analysis of WC claim costs to
guide the setting of rates/loss costs by insurance companies.
NCCI analyzes industry trends, prepares workers compen-
sation insurance rate recommendations, determines the
cost of proposed legislation, and provides a variety of ser-
vices and tools to maintain a healthy workers’ compensa-
tion system (National Council on Compensation Insurance
(NCCI), 2023). Certain types of information and data con-
tained in this research article has been provided by NCCI
to NIOSH in support of NIOSH research initiatives. The
views and conclusions contained in this article are those of
the authors and should not be interpreted as representing
the opinions of NCCI, and NCCI makes no guarantees
nor assumes responsibility for the accuracy of any results
obtained through the use of the NCCI data.
NCCI agreed to share with NIOSH aggregated min-
ing-related WC claims data from 2012–2015 for 35 states.
The dataset grouped claims by type: Medical-Only and
Lost-Time Non-Fatal injuries. The definition of Lost-Time
varies by state from four or more to eight or more days away
from work in U.S. states’ WC systems (Utterback, Meyers,
&Wurzelbacher, 2014). Medical-Only claims include only
medical costs, while Lost-Time claims normally include
both medical and indemnity costs. The NCCI dataset only
includes claims that have been accepted for payment.
The cost data are incurred costs of medical treatments
and indemnity for lost wages due to temporary and perma-
nent disability. Incurred costs include both paid costs and
reserves for anticipated future costs. Costs were valued as of
the fifth report, which is provided approximately five and
a half years after the policy year of injury. At the time of
data receipt from NCCI, the 2012–2015 data had full fifth
report development. All costs are nominal, as no inflation
adjustments were applied.
Only non-zero cost injury types (diagnosis) with more
than 50 cases were included. A total of 35,967 mining-
related claims were included in the analysis with 21,223
medical only non-fatal injury claims and 14,744 lost-time
non-fatal injury claims. The medical-only claims include
injuries that only had medical-related payments with no
time away from work. Lost-time claims include the medical