What Does
Total Case Incident Rate Mean?
The total case incident rate (TCIR) is a figure that represents the number of work-related injuries per 100 full-time workers over the course of a year.
The calculation is based on the number of mandatory reported OSHA recordable injuries and illnesses. Because of this, TCIR is also known as OSHA incident rate.
Safety professionals can calculate their company’s TCIR using the following formula:
(Number of OSHA recordable injuries and illnesses x 200,000) / number of employee hours worked
Safeopedia Explains Total Case Incident Rate
The TCIR is a benchmark that allows companies to compare their historical safety performance against other companies of similar size in the same industry and region.
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) publishes annual TCIR data, including overall rates as well as breakdowns by various subcategories. It also provides basic summary statistics, such as the average and median TCIR for each subcategory.
TCIR is one of the metrics OSHA uses to monitor high-risk industries. Safety managers can also use it to track incidents and uncover incident trends and patterns.
Calculating the Total Case Incident Rate
The TCIR calculation multiplies the number of work-related injuries by a constant of 200,000. The resulting product is then divided by the actual number of employee hours worked. This strictly refers to hours actually worked and excludes paid time off or breaks that were logged as hours worked for accounting purposes.
The 200,000 figure represents the number of hours that 100 employees working for 40 hours per week would work in a year, assuming no significant absences. Using this constant ensures that incident rates across different workplaces are measured on a common scale, regardless of the size of each workplace or the average number of hours worked per week.
Because of this constant, data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows relatively little variance in the TCIR between companies that have vastly different numbers of employees. Workplaces with fewer than 10 employees have an average TCIR of 1.5, while workplaces with more than 1,000 employees have an average TCIR of 4.0.
The Importance of Calculating TCIR
The TCIR is a lagging indicator, meaning that it gives insight into a company’s past safety performance. It is also a convenient way to keep tabs on whether an organization’s safety performance is improving or worsening year over year.
A poor TCIR can result in penalties and additional unscheduled inspections from OSHA. Insurance providers also consider it when calculating insurance premiums.
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