Why more U.S. workers are hitting the panic button

• Key insight: Learn how panic-button tech and standalone workplace-violence insurance are reshaping employer risk strategies.
• What's at stake: Rising incidents could increase liability, operational disruption, and regulatory mandates for employers.
• Expert quote: "Speed of summoning help often determines escalation," says Kenny Kelley, Silent Beacon CEO.
  Source: Bullets generated by AI with editorial review

Workplace safety is facing a critical reckoning, with an alarming rise in emergencies that highlight significant gaps in how well workers are protected, observes Kenny Kelley, CEO of Silent Beacon, which makes wearable panic buttons that alert emergency services, co-workers, supervisors and loved ones. 

"Nearly 70% of companies have reported a safety incident involving an employee working alone in the past three years, and one in five of these incidents were classified as quite or very severe," he says, noting a nearly 9% surge in U.S. workplace homicides was the highest levels in more than a decade.

Several states such as New York, New Jersey, Georgia and Washington have passed panic-button mandates to close the gap between preparedness and emergency response, he explains, recognizing that every second counts. 

"Panic-button technology is empowering workers in high-risk environments — from nurses visiting patients alone at their homes and janitors working late at night, to retail employees closing up shop and teachers facing a crisis," he says.

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"The difference between a manageable situation and a full-blown crisis often depends on how quickly help can be summoned and whether the worker can do so without escalating the situation," Kelley explains.

When CSA Insure and National Workplace Violence Safety Alliance founder Lee Stokes worked for a large insurance wholesaler about 10 years ago, he was alarmed by some workplace violence data involving healthcare and education. 

In noticing that insurance companies were excluding assault and battery from their policies for employers, he saw an opportunity to mitigate financial risk for individual employees who were victims of workplace violence. Within two years, he brought to market an affordable product to close that coverage gap. 

His workplace violence insurance is a stand-alone policy that, in most cases, costs less than $1 a day per location or less than 10 cents an employee per day. It includes a survivor benefit whose coverage level could range from $300,000 to $1 million, as well as income replacement, hospitalization and a myriad of other components. 

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An employer or affinity group such as a professional association, union or trade organization, as well as an insurance company or trust, could purchase this coverage. 

Noting that the workplace violence insurance he designed now insures more than a million lives across a broad spectrum of industries, Stokes is also looking at targeting first-responder unions representing police officers and firefighters given how people in authority positions are increasingly being disrespected. 

Avoiding lawsuits

Mindful that we live in a litigious society, Stokes notes that family members who lost a loved one to workplace violence often will sue their employer for wrongful death. However, if this type of coverage is in place, a dependent might think twice about filing a lawsuit. "We've seen that actually play out," he says.

In spite of Texas spending tens of millions of dollars last year on increased fences and more security cameras on school campuses as well as more security checkpoints, teacher violence shot up 98% across the Lone Star state, according to Geoff Godsey, a producer and vice president with Alliant Americas who sells workplace violence insurance. 

Even a secure building in midtown Manhattan where Blackstone Inc. is headquartered, he adds, could not stop a 27-year-old gunman armed with an AR-15–style rifle and wearing body armor from killing four and injuring several others last July.

"At the end of the day, when someone wants to hurt somebody, it is really difficult to predict, and it's virtually impossible to stop," he says. 

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Each week, Stokes talks to brokers about solutions that will help them gain a competitive leg up. "Anytime you're talking about something that's going to affect not only the employee, but the employee's family and will help protect their assets if there was God forbid a violent event at work, it's a different and unique conversation," he says. "It doesn't matter if it's white collar, blue collar or gray collar. This is a way to differentiate themselves in the marketplace." 

He has resisted suggestions from some industry circles to mark up the product, explaining that his mission is to solve a serious societal problem, not make insurance brokers or agents wealthy. Developed under the auspices of his not-for-profit alliance, the aim is to extend as much coverage to as many people as possible with a meaningful benefit. 

"I hope that someday this product goes away because we don't need it anymore," Stokes reveals. "That's the God's honest truth." 

This is part two of a series. Read part one here.