Leading the Way: Breakthroughs in Construction Safety

Contractors Using Arrowsight and Zurich Resilience Solutions' Risk Engineering Are Transforming Construction Site Safety

In an industry where every day brings new hazards and the stakes could not be higher, construction business owners and industry leaders are always searching for ways to protect their teams and reduce risk. 

 In recent years, a powerful solution combining Arrowsight Remote Video Coaching and Zurich Resilience Solutions’ Risk Engineering has been quietly transforming construction safety, delivering measurable improvements -- from dramatically reduced claims and incurred losses to reduction in Experience Modification Rates -- reducing risk and driving down costs for construction businesses.

Game-Changing Safety Innovations for the Construction Industry

Remote Video Coaching, pioneered by Arrowsight, deploys rugged, portable, battery-powered cell-enabled cameras across construction sites—specifically targeting the highest hazard areas. These cameras provide continuous views of critical work activities, even in locations with no internet or power. Human auditors who are degreed civil engineers then review and annotate the video, using proprietary “Smart Sampling” tools to identify both correct and unsafe practices of the highest risk work activities. Daily trend reports and flagged video coaching clips are shared with project teams, creating a feedback loop that modifies behavior and helps prevent incidents before they occur.

But the real breakthrough has come from pairing this technology with Zurich Resilience Solutions’ industry-leading risk engineers. No longer is risk engineering a quarterly, transactional visit. Instead, Zurich’s construction risk engineers become embedded members of project teams, participating in daily reviews and biweekly web meeting coaching sessions. This hands-on, ongoing engagement ensures that safety improvements are implemented in real time, and that teams have direct access to expertise when and where it matters most.

Real Results, Real Impact

Contractors who make investments in safety are driving the transformation. In its own three-year pilot and underwriting study, Zurich tracked claim frequency data for nine New York City building projects equipped with Arrowsight cameras and 12 New York City projects without them across similar phases of the projects. The preliminary results of the underwriting study found that the sites with Arrowsight technology saw more than 50% reduction in the number of claims compared with the non-Arrowsight projects.

Posillico Civil, a New York-based heavy-civil construction firm that works on roads, bridges and more, also conducted a four-year pilot and study using Arrowsight cameras on a collection of projects. The company reports its Experience Modification Rate (EMR), a key claims-incident rating that factors into workers’ compensation premiums, dropped from .65 to .25. EMR represents a relative safety score, with scores less than 1.0 being favorable. 

Rick Nota, CFO, Posillico

“We are very proud to have been the first civil construction company in the U.S. to work with and then widely adopt the use of Arrowsight’s Remote Video Coaching services. Our EMR in New York has dropped from .65 in 2019 when we started working with Arrowsight all the way down to .25 this year. This has significantly lowered our insurance costs and helped us keep our critically valuable project teams much safer.” 

Contractors who were part of Zurich’s study have seen the improvements firsthand: 

Doug Ware, Risk Manager, Suffolk Construction

“We have seen strong results when implementing the unique combination of Arrowsight’s Remote Video Coaching services and Zurich Resilience Solutions’ experienced risk engineering team. When leveraging these solutions together, we have seen approximately 4X fewer claims and 10X lower incurred losses on the projects. Zurich risk engineers are now continuously engaged with our project teams, adding even more value—they are included on daily coaching reports and flagged videos, and they participate in bi-weekly coaching sessions with our field staff and the Arrowsight team.”

Don Naber, Risk Manager, Gilbane

“We have been incredibly impressed with the combined service offering that Zurich and Arrowsight have developed. The initial results across multiple ground-up and building renovation projects in two states have far exceeded anything we could have imagined possible given the highly complex work we perform.” 

These statements reflect what Zurich is seeing in its early data across multiple projects:

• More than 50% fewer claims (conservatively) on projects utilizing Remote Video Coaching and Zurich’s embedded risk engineers, compared to similar sites without these services.
• Significant reductions in Experience Modification Rates (EMR) —a critical metric for insurance costs and safety performance—empowering companies to bid more competitively and protect their workforce

The integrated solution from Arrowsight and Zurich Resilience Solutions is showing that observation and coaching can deliver significant improvement in safety and cost management for construction organizations. By focusing on the highest-risk activities, providing daily actionable insights, and embedding industry-specialist risk engineers as part of the team, this solution is setting a new standard in making worksites safer, smarter and returning more workers home safely each night.