A comprehensive guide to mastering DART rates - Arrowhead General Insurance Agency, Inc.

How to help your clients understand and manage their DART rates

DART stands for Days Away, Restricted or Transferred. It measures workplace safety by tracking serious injuries that affect work performance.
A lower DART rate means fewer OSHA inspections and lower workers’ compensation premiums.
Help your clients implement comprehensive safety programs, conduct regular inspections and maintain proper record-keeping to reduce workplace injuries and maintain a low DART rate.

Working in insurance, you know that your role goes beyond policies and premiums; you’re a vital resource for your clients, helping them navigate the complexities of workplace safety and compliance. And you take this role seriously. So, one critical component you can assist your clients with is understanding and managing DART incident rates: what they mean, why they matter and how to keep them low to stay on the Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s good side. Let’s jump right in.

The ABCs of DART

To lay the groundwork, let’s start by deciphering the acronym. DART stands for “Days Away, Restricted or Transferred.” It’s a measure used by OSHA to gauge workplace safety and more specifically, to track the number of incidents causing employees to miss work, perform restricted duties or transfer to different jobs within a year. Think of it as a pulse check on how effectively a company is preventing severe workplace injuries.

Related: Insights and strategies to reduce workplace injuries and claims

In high-risk industries, particularly, maintaining a safe working environment is essential, and perhaps no metric measures the effectiveness of a company’s safety programs as accurately as its DART incident rate. So, if a DART rate is OSHA’s metric for assessing workplace safety, a high rate could inevitably lead to a few issues, such as:

OSHA scrutiny: A high DART rate can trigger OSHA inspections, which could lead to business disruptions and hefty fines if violations are discovered.
Financial impact: Increased DART rates often go hand in hand with higher workers’ compensation insurance premiums, which undoubtedly impacts a company’s bottom line.
Reputation risk: Much like OSHA, clients and partners view DART rates as a measure of reliability, so companies with strong safety records could be more appealing and thus, attract more business opportunities.

How to calculate a DART rate

While it may seem daunting at first, calculating a DART incident rate is actually quite straightforward. All you have to do is follow this simple formula:

DART rate = (Number of DART incidents / Total hours worked) x 200,000

Let’s walk through it. First, count the total number of DART incidents — again, this would be days employees were away, restricted or transferred. Then divide that number by the sum of total hours worked by all employees during the year, and end by multiplying the result by 200,000. It’s that simple.

So, for example, if there were 15 DART incidents and 500,000 total hours worked:

(15 / 500,000) x 200,000 = 6 DART incident rate

You’ve got it. But to ensure you arrive at the most accurate number, advise your clients to:

Keep safety logs updated in accordance with OSHA’s latest rules
Regularly review logs to ensure they only include incidents requiring more than first aid
Implement a return-to-work program to reduce lost workdays

When calculating total hours worked, exclude vacation days, sick leave and holidays. Also, be sure to account for all staff, including maintenance and temporary workers.

Related: Deaths, injuries and eventualities: how to streamline your OSHA reporting

Strategies for keeping DART rates low

As you may have inferred by now, a high DART rate signals potential issues within the workplace, which can impact insurance costs and reflect poorly on the company’s safety culture. However, the inverse is also true: a lower DART rate can be representative of a company’s commitment to safety, which can go a long way in improving their standing among clients and partners. So, the choice is clear: it’s in your clients’ best interests to strive for the lowest DART rates possible to improve their safety, financial and reputational standing.

The good news is that there are safety steps your clients can take to lower and maintain a low DART rate. Here are some proactive measures they can adopt:

Strengthen the company’s safety culture

If they haven’t already, your clients should develop and enforce comprehensive safety protocols for their workplace and workforce. Help them foster a strong safety culture by encouraging them to involve senior leadership, empower employees and conduct regular safety meetings — a committed workforce is key to maintaining high safety standards.

Implement effective training programs

And with a safety program in place, it’s also important that your clients enforce regular training for all employees. They should conduct comprehensive training sessions, focusing on safe work practices and emergency response procedures. All training materials should be regularly updated to reflect current best practices and regulatory changes.

Stay on top of safety metrics

In addition to DART, advise your clients to regularly monitor other key safety metrics like Total Recordable Incident Rate, or TRIR and Lost Time Injury Frequency Rate, or LTIFR. Staying on top of these numbers allows for the quick identification and mitigation of risks.

Conduct regular inspections

Employers should conduct regular inspections to help identify potential hazards before they result in DART incidents. These safety checks can and should be used to assess the effectiveness of existing safety measures and make necessary improvements.

Improve record-keeping

And lastly, your clients should take care to maintain accurate records of all incidents and safety measures. These records not only aid in calculating a DART rate but also provide valuable data for identifying trends and areas for improvement.

The key takeaways on DART rates

As you can see, DART rates can have a significant impact on your clients’ long-term success. A company’s DART rate not only serves as a gauge for the safety of their work environment but also influences their Experience Modifier, which in turn impacts their workers’ compensation premiums. It’s true that navigating workplace safety metrics can seem daunting at times but helping your clients understand and manage their DART rates is a first step in the right direction. So, by encouraging your clients to foster a culture of safety and compliance, they can not only reduce their insurance costs but also improve their safety, reputation and operational efficiency. What could be more worthwhile than that?