Italy

Organization responsible for the statistics

Istituto Nazionale per l'Assicurazione contro gli Infortuni sul Lavoro (INAIL) (National Institute for Insurance against Occupational Accidents).

Periodicity

Annual.

Source

Claims for compensation submitted to the INAIL.

Coverage

Persons:

Persons insured.

Insurance against occupational injury is compulsory for all employees carrying out paid manual work on a permanent or casual basis in specific activities or processes. Non-manual workers in the public and private sectors are insured if they supervise manual workers, or if they use any type of electrical or electronic machinery on a regular basis (including electric typewriters and calculators). Self-employed workers in industry and agriculture, apprentices, family workers and members of cooperatives are also insured if they are manual workers in specific activities. The INAIL insures almost all those for whom insurance is compulsory. In addition, maritime workers are covered by the Casse Marittime, postal and telecommunication workers by the Aziende Autonome del Ministero delle Poste e Telecomunicazioni and state railway employees by the Amministrazione delle Ferrovie dello Stato. By law, state administrations are required to report occupational injuries to the INAIL.

In 1996, 20,087,000 persons were insured.

Economic activities:

All economic activities and sectors.

Geographic areas:

Whole country.

Establishments:

All types and sizes of establishments.

Types of occupational accidents covered

The statistics cover compensated injuries due to all types of occupational accidents.

Commuting accidents are not covered by the insurance, but decisions in a number of cases have led to compensation being paid for almost all such accidents, as a result of which they are included in the statistics.

Statistics of occupational diseases are compiled and published separately.

Concepts and definitions

(Source: Presidential Decree No. 1124 of 30 June 1965, as amended and modified)

Industrial accidents:

accidents with a violent cause which take place during work and result in death or full or partial permanent disability, or full temporary disability resulting in an absence from work of more than three days.

Commuting accidents:

accidents which occur on the way to work or on the way home.

Minimum period of absence from work: three days.

Maximum period for death to be considered a fatal occupational injury: none.

Measurement of worktime lost

Worktime lost is measured in terms of calendar days, from the day following the day of the accident to the day before the return to work, for cases of temporary incapacity to work.

Reference period

Year.

Documentation

Bibliographic references:

The data are published in:

Istituto Nazionale per l'Assicurazione contro gli Infortuni sul Lavoro (INAIL): Notizario Statistico: pubblicazione trimestrale a cura della consulenza statisticco attuariale.

Data published by ILO:

The following data are furnished regularly to the ILO for publication in the Yearbook of Labour Statistics, relating to compensated injuries (including commuting accidents), according to major division of economic activity: number of persons fatally injured, number of persons injured with lost workdays, total of these two groups; number of workdays lost by persons injured with lost workdays; rates of fatal injuries. The number of persons at risk (total number of persons insured) is also supplied and stored in the LABORSTA database.

Method of data collection

Legislation:

Occupational accidents must be reported to the insuring institute regardless of whether there is entitlement to compensation, within two days of the employer learning of the accident, and must be accompanied by a medical certificate.

Reporting:

For industrial and service workers and for agricultural workers employed on contracts without limit of time, the employer is required to submit the report, which must be substantiated by a medical certificate. For self-employed agricultural workers, and those working in agriculture on fixed-term contracts, the doctor who first provides assistance should submit the report. On reception of the report and medical certificate, the relevant office of the INAIL opens a file for the particular case. This file is closed when the final medical certificate attesting to the end of the temporary incapacity is received. All the information provided is entered on a single electronic data base. This is used by the INAIL for its own purposes (for budget and balance sheets, calculation of premiums, etc.) as well as to produce its publications. In addition, the INAIL provides occupational safety departments with any information which may be useful to combat occupational risks. The data base is updated on a continuous basis with all information obtained during the processing of the injury files.

Data reported:

The following information is reported inter alia:
  1. information about the employer: economic activity, number of employees;
  2. information about the injured person: age, sex, occupation, length of service in post, whether on training programme;
  3. information about the accident: date, time, hours worked at the time of the accident, part of machine causing the accident, description of the accident, site of the accident (type of location), agent of injury, form of movement of agent of injury, activity of victim, effect on victim;
  4. information about the injury: part of body injured; nature of injury, number of days lost, whether the injury was fatal, led to a permanent disability or temporary incapacity.