The median serious mental health claim in Australia cost $67,400 in compensation and 35.7 working weeks of lost time in 2022-23, against $16,300 and 7.4 weeks for all serious claims. Claims for mental health conditions are 12% of all serious claims and have grown 161% in a decade. PwC's analysis for Beyond Blue found an average return of $2.30 for every dollar invested in effective workplace mental health action. The case for prevention is arithmetic, not just sentiment.
On this page
Every budget cycle, someone in HR is asked to justify training for something that has not gone wrong yet. Here are the numbers, how to present them to finance, and where they stop. Overclaiming is the fastest way to lose a finance audience.
‘Emotions, distress, mental health, wellbeing. These are all words that CFOs frown at because they are rarely measured and therefore hard to invest in. So stop using those words and use the CFOs language to get sign off on training you know is needed to avoid future mental health claims.’
What one claim costs
Start with the median, not the average, because the average is skewed by catastrophic cases and finance will challenge it.
In 2022-23 the median serious mental health claim in Australia cost $67,400 in compensation and 35.7 working weeks of lost time, against $16,300 and 7.4 weeks across all serious claims. That is roughly four times the cost and almost five times as long.
Those figures are compensation only. They exclude replacement cost, lost productivity, management time, legal costs and premium impact.
The trend finance needs to see
Mental health conditions accounted for 12% of all serious claims in 2023-24. That is up 14.7% on the previous year and 161% over the decade. No other major claim category is growing at anything like that rate. Across 146,700 serious claims nationally, that is roughly 17,600 mental health claims in one year.
Show that as a line beside the flat or declining trend for physical injury claims. The picture makes the point: this is the risk that is growing. Some growth reflects better reporting and recognition. That is not a reason to discount it: the risk was always there, it is now visible, and regulators are acting on it.
The return on prevention
PwC’s analysis for Beyond Blue remains the most cited Australian figure: an average return of $2.30 for every dollar invested in effective workplace mental health action, and $10.9 billion a year in costs from untreated conditions. The report is over a decade old, measures organisation-wide action rather than a single program, and depends on leadership commitment. Present it as a benchmark, not a guarantee.
The stronger case is your own data: mental health claims, frontline incident reports, and absence and attrition in high-exposure teams. Cost them, then compare against the price of the control.
A simple model
Take one high-exposure team of 40 people. Training them in practical conversation and de-escalation skills, with a refresher, costs a fraction of a single median claim. Prevent one claim over three years and it has paid for itself several times. If it reduces absence and attrition in that team by even a few percentage points, the return compounds.
Be honest about attribution. Training alone rarely prevents a claim. It works alongside workload, rostering and work design, and regulators expect it to sit beside changes to the work. Present it as the control that makes the others work, with your incident data as the probability. Finance leaders understand that structure. It is how they evaluate every other safety control.
The cost that is not in the claim data
The claim is the visible cost. The invisible cost is the advisor who never claims and quietly leaves, the manager who avoids a difficult conversation for six months, the escalations that reach the executive, and the regulator visit that ends in an improvement notice because training records show awareness sessions and nothing that builds up skills.
These show up in attrition, engagement, complaint volumes and leadership time, and they are your leading indicators. A claim shows harm already done. An absence spike in one team shows where the next one is forming. Put a conservative line for each in the model.
What to do this quarter
- Pull three years of mental health claim data, incident reports and absence for high-exposure teams.
- Cost one median claim using the Safe Work Australia figures, then add your own replacement and management cost.
- Price the control: practical training for the exposed roles, refreshers and records.
- Build a one-page case: cost of one event, probability from your incident data, cost of the control, trend chart.
- Present it as risk management, not wellbeing. That is the language the approver uses.
Where CALM fits
CALM Conversations’ programs are priced and structured as a control: role-specific, practical, documented and refreshable. Managing Strong Emotions for frontline teams, Conversations during Change for leaders, and train-the-trainer options for organisations that want the capability to stay in-house.
Key takeaways
- Median compensation for a serious mental health claim was $67,400, against $16,300 for all serious claims (2022-23). Source: Safe Work Australia, Key WHS Statistics
- Median time lost was 35.7 working weeks for mental health claims, against 7.4 weeks for all serious claims. Source: Safe Work Australia
- Mental health conditions were 12% of all serious claims in 2023-24, up 14.7% on the prior year and 161% on a decade earlier. Source: Safe Work Australia, Key WHS Statistics Australia 2025
- PwC found an average return of $2.30 for every $1 invested in effective workplace mental health strategies, and estimated untreated mental health conditions cost Australian employers $10.9 billion a year. Source: PwC for Beyond Blue, Creating a mentally healthy workplace: return on investment analysis (2014)
- 146,700 serious workers’ compensation claims were lodged in 2023-24. Source: Safe Work Australia
Frequently asked questions
How much does a mental health workers’ compensation claim cost in Australia?
The median serious mental health claim cost $67,400 in compensation and 35.7 working weeks of lost time in 2022-23, according to Safe Work Australia. That is about four times the median compensation and almost five times the median time lost for all serious claims.
What is the return on investment for workplace mental health training?
PwC’s analysis for Beyond Blue found an average return of $2.30 for every $1 invested in effective workplace mental health strategies. It reflects organisation-wide action and leadership commitment, so use it as a benchmark alongside your own claim, absence and attrition data.
How do I build a business case for emotional safety training?
Cost one median claim using national data, add your own replacement and management costs, estimate the probability from your incident reports, and compare the total against the price of training the exposed roles. Present it as a risk control, not a wellbeing initiative.
References
- Safe Work Australia, Key Work Health and Safety Statistics Australia 2025 (October 2025)
- Safe Work Australia, Key Work Health and Safety Statistics 2024 media release
- PwC for Beyond Blue and the Mentally Healthy Workplace Alliance, Creating a mentally healthy workplace: return on investment analysis (2014)
- Safe Work Australia, Heads Up: the business case for creating a mentally healthy workplace (video transcript)
