One of the biggest benefits an employer can offer to employees is health insurance – and it seems like that would be especially important to employees who work in high-injury industries. But a new study from ValuePenguin, a personal finance website, suggests that workers in dangerous fields are actually less likely to have employer-sponsored health insurance than their counterparts in lower-risk jobs. 

According to the research, over a third of all employees injured at work in 2020 did not have employer-sponsored health insurance, meaning they were almost 8% less likely to have coverage than the average employee across all industries. Moreover, the industries which have the highest rates of injuries – including the farming, fishing and forestry industry, and the food preparation industry – were amongst those least likely to offer workers employer-sponsored insurance. In fact, while 84% of employees in the five least dangerous professions were covered by employer insurance, only 55% of employees in the top five most dangerous professions were.