Slips, Trips and Falls: 3 Steps to Reduce Claims Costs in Retail
Retail Slips, Trips and Falls:
I’m sure if you are in any way, shape, or form, involved in managing risk within the retail industry, the mention of slips, trips, and falls sends shivers down your spine. It has long been accepted that slips, trips, and falls represents some of the most frequent, and costly, claims within the retail sector, and it is easy to understand why. With hundreds, thousands, or millions of customers walking through your doors every year, how can you possibly prevent everyone from falling on your property? The law of large numbers suggests that a certain percentage must fall while on your premises.
In our recent whitepaper, “Slips, Trips, and Falls: Three Steps to Reduce Claims Costs”, we talked about a three-step process to identifying potential causes of slip and fall incidents, mitigating them, and implementing a system for tracking success and continuously improving. Each step is then broken down into detail with suggestions on how to implement this process within your organization.In some cases, the fault lies entirely with the customer. We all lose our balance from time to time and wearing high heel shoes during the dead of winter, while perhaps a great fashion choice, is simply an incident waiting to happen. The combination of ice and water outside your location, and the slippery surface of the shoe can make walking a difficult task for even the most cautious individual. On the other hand, if a customer is wearing proper footwear and walks into your store, wiping his or her feet on the entrance mat to remove any excess moisture, and subsequently slips due to a puddle which has accumulated just beyond the mat, the customer may now have a legitimate case for a claim. Whether you are responsible or not, do you have a reasonable case to defend such a claim?
For anyone who hasn’t read the whitepaper, we call this the PRO-active process: prevention, recording incidents, and optimization. Following the process creates a continuous cycle of improvement which is critical in any risk management process as risk is always evolving.
Check out our whitepaper to learn more about how to reduce your slip and fall claims.