Annual Insurance Claims Costs News

This is the second in a series of Maritime Reporter and Engineering News articles on Safety Culture in the maritime industry. The first article, which appeared in our October, 2013 edition, discussed the importance of management leadership, training, measurement, a focus on learning rather than blame, and continuous reflection on safety. In this second article, safety culture expert Captain John Wright discusses the key ingredients of a healthy safety culture. I had the good fortune of meeting Captain Wright because of his involvement with the BC Ferries SailSafe project.

“Safety Culture” is one of those terms that is used a lot in the maritime industry. We all think it is important, and every operator wants a “good” safety culture. But how does one get it, and then keep it once it is there? This is the first of a pair of articles looking at safety culture in the maritime industry. What is Safety Culture? The IMO tells us “An organization with a ‘safety culture’ is one that gives appropriate priority to safety ... This is a fair, but arguably limited description. Safety culture is not something that a vessel operator either has or does not have.

BC Ferries cut time loss injuries in half; it reduced serious injuries by two-thirds; it slashed annual insurance claims costs by more than three-quarters. What are you waiting for? Can a vessel operator completely reshape its safety culture? Can it transform communications, training, operational practices and even employee engagement? And most importantly, if an operator is able to make such sweeping changes, what measurable difference will it make? It turns out it can make a huge difference to almost every meaningful key performance indicator…