Cost of Exposure  /  Australian WHS

What psychosocial risk is already costing your organisation

This tool estimates what your business carries today from voluntary turnover and from a single workers compensation psychological injury claim. The claim figure is the employer's own cost, not the insurer's payout. Adjust the inputs to your own numbers. Every figure links to its source.

How to read this

Here is how to read what follows. The first number is what voluntary turnover is already costing your organisation each year. The second is what a single psychological injury claim would add, should one occur. The third is what it costs to put a control in place against both. Every figure carries its source, and a short panel near the end sets out what the estimate deliberately leaves out, so you can see exactly how it was built.

Your numbers

Set the inputs

Defaults are illustrative. Change any value to reflect your organisation.

Sets the premium rules and the scheme reference figure.
20200
$55k$220k
Sets the turnover replacement rate, per Gallup's role tiers.
060
08
Leave at zero to model the cost should a first claim occur.
Select the pricing that applies to you. Early adopter reveals the introductory terms below.
Standard is $30 per employee per month plus a one-off Readiness Assessment. Early adopter waives the Assessment, with a complimentary introductory period you set below.
012
The early adopter free period before standard billing begins. Held at three for new clients.
Waived
Complimentary for early adopters.

For firms whose people bill their time, such as recruiters, agencies, consultancies and professional services. When a fee-earner is off, the role often sits uncovered for a period before a contractor starts, and that gap is revenue the business does not recover. Switch this on to add it. It counts only the uncovered gap, so it does not double count with the contractor backfill.

18
1.5x3.5x
Counts only the uncovered gap, so it does not double count with the contractor backfill.
What one claim costs you
A single psychological injury claim costs your business about $119,779. That is roughly 7 years of the GraceX control at standard price for your headcount.
Employer cost only, built from contractor backfill over the median absence plus internal management time. Premium impact is excluded and explained below.
Exposure 1  /  Recurring, each year
$528,000
Annual economic cost of replacing voluntary leavers. This is the full cost including lost productivity and ramp, not only recruitment spend.
Why this numberYour departures multiplied by Gallup's replacement rate for the workforce profile you chose. Technical and professional roles replace at 80% of salary, which is why the figure is larger than a recruitment invoice.
Preventable (Gallup 42%): 2 of 6 departures$176,000

Gallup finds 42% of employees who left voluntarily say their departure could have been prevented through earlier management action. Applied as whole people and rounded down, so it never overstates. An industry finding on what is addressable, not a figure GraceX guarantees to recover.

Exposure 2  /  Per claim, if one occurs
$119,779
Employer cost should a single psychological injury claim occur.
Why this numberThe injured worker's wages are carried by the scheme, so this counts only what it costs you to cover the role: a contractor at a market rate over the median absence, plus your own management and return-to-work time. Premium is excluded.
Contractor backfill (1.5x salary, 35.7 weeks)$113,279
Management and return-to-work time$6,500

The contractor is the realistic cover for the absence: the role is filled while the worker is off, at a market rate higher than salary.

The control  /  GraceX cost
$22,700
Year one, licence plus Readiness Assessment
$16,200
Each year ongoing · $30 per employee per month
A flat price per employee each month, plus a one-off Readiness Assessment in year one, tiered by headcount: $6,500 for 20 to 50 staff, $9,500 for 51 to 100, $14,500 for 101 to 200. Pricing shown is the GraceX licence and Assessment only.

The figures above are deliberately built low. These real costs are not counted, which means your true exposure is higher, not lower, than what is shown.

  • Premium impact. Excluded.
  • The injured worker's own wages. Carried by the workers compensation scheme during the absence, so not counted as your cost.
  • Knock-on turnover and team morale. A claim or a departure often triggers others. Not modelled.
  • Legal, investigation and dispute costs. Variable and excluded.
  • The median absence, not the average. The longer mean would raise every claim figure. We use the shorter median.
  • Whole people, rounded down. Preventable departures are counted as whole people and rounded down, never up.
For reference, the NSW scheme pays an average of $288,542 on a psychological injury claim. That is the insurer's cost, not yours. The figure above is your own modelled cost as the employer, which is why it is lower and built from items you actually pay. NSW reforms apply a tightened eligibility test to psychological injuries first reported on or after 1 July 2026. The scheme average above predates those changes.
Sources and assumptions

Turnover replacement (Exposure 1)

  • Replacement cost by role, 40% of salary for frontline, 80% for technical and professional, 200% for leaders and managers, and 42% of employees who left voluntarily saying their departure could have been prevented through earlier management action. Gallup Workplace, 2024.

Employer claim cost (Exposure 2)

  • Median time lost for a serious mental health claim, 35.7 working weeks, 2022-23. Safe Work Australia, Key Work Health and Safety Statistics Australia 2025.
  • Temporary cover bills above the base wage: casual loading alone adds 25% (FairWork Mate, 2026), and agency markup adds a further 15 to 30%, taking the billable rate to roughly 125% to 155% of the base (Avirelle Staffing, 2026). The model uses 1.5x.
  • Management and return-to-work time, around 80 hours at $80 per hour, $6,500. Modelled GraceX assumption based on claim-handling experience, not a published statistic.
  • Productivity ramp is not given a dollar figure. For context only, technical and senior roles take 60 to 90 days to reach full productivity. AllenComm, 2026.

Premium impact, why it is excluded

Scheme context

General information, not financial or legal advice. Verify any figure against its source before relying on it. Replacement, contractor and management figures are modelled, and the result is an estimate of exposure, not a guarantee of cost or saving.