Incident & loss investigation
Every kind of loss. One standard of fact-finding.
People, assets, operations, information and reputation.
All investigationsPeople & health
Serious Incident & HiPOActual or potential major consequenceInjury & FatalitySequence, causes and preventionOccupational IllnessExposure, health effects and controlsPatient Safety ReviewIndependent, non-adversarial clinical reviewHarassment & Workplace ConductFair, confidential HR investigationTransport & projects
Road & FleetVehicle, driver and routeMarine & PortVessels, terminals and cargoConstruction & ContractorMulti-party site eventsProject Incident ReviewOne account from every partySecurity & Cargo LossTheft, robbery and hijackingAssets & operations
Fire & ExplosionOrigin, spread and conditionsIndustrial & ProcessReleases, upsets and start-upsMachinery & EquipmentFailure, guarding and maintenanceElectrical IncidentsShock, arc flash and isolationEnvironmental ReleaseSpills, effluent and emissionsProperty & Asset DamageDamage and business interruptionInformation, reputation & time
Information LossData, records and system failuresReputation LossWhat caused the damage to trustProcess LossYield, waste and reworkTime LossNon-productive time and delayProduct ContaminationFood, pharma and packagingRegulatory & Licence BreachFindings, sanctions and scrutinyBeyond accidents
Problems repeat when the real cause stays hidden.
Independent fact-finding and root cause analysis for customer, process, quality and operational breakdowns.
All business investigationsAnalytical methods
The event chooses the method — not the method the event.
We do not force every event through one RCA tool. Complexity and evidence determine the approach.
Explore methodsOur approach
The P3i Causation ModelFrom loss to control gapRoot Cause AnalysisFrom symptom to preventionMethod SelectionChoose the analysis to fit the caseGathering the facts
Evidence & Scene ManagementPreservation, documentation and custodyInvestigative InterviewingStructured, non-accusatory fact-findingSector knowledge
Local operating reality. Global discipline.
Teams and methods selected to fit the sector, event and decision required.
All industriesEnergy & process
Oil, Gas & EnergyChemicals, Petrochemicals & FertilizersCement, Steel & Heavy IndustryManufacturing & food
ManufacturingTextiles & ApparelPharmaceuticalsFood, Beverage & FMCGSugar Mills & Agro-ProcessingBuild investigators
Practical capability, not classroom theory.
Nationals of more than 100 countries trained; seminars led in over 20 countries.
Explore trainingInvestigator pathway
Introduction to Incident Investigation 1dIncident Investigation Techniques 2dIncident Investigation & Root Cause Analysis 5dLead Investigator 5dRCA Specialist & Facilitator 5dInvestigation for Leaders 1dSkills & reporting
Investigative Interviewing Skills 2dHuman Factors in Accident Investigation 2dEvidence Collection & Scene Management 2dHiPO Investigation 2dBarrier-Based Root Cause Analysis 2dInvestigation Report Formulation & Writing 2dPresenting RCA Findings to Management 1dCorrective Action Plans That Work 1dFor insurers & risk teams
Independent cause and circumstance support.
Technical fact-finding for complex losses without stepping into policy interpretation or adjusting decisions.
Insurance investigation servicesPOPULAR SEARCHES
Tip: press Ctrl + K or / anywhere to search.
No pages match “”.
Try a simpler word such as fire, road, training or insurance, or ask an investigator directly.
Home / Investigations / Serious Incident & HiPO
Nobody was hurt. That is not the same as nothing happened.
A load drops a metre from a worker. A gas release finds no spark. A reversing forklift misses a pedestrian by a step. The causes are the same as a fatality's; the only difference was luck. We investigate these events by what could have happened, and we do it before luck runs out.
Safety record
2,190
Days without a lost-time injury
The board at the gate measures how often people get hurt. It does not measure how close they came.
Since the 1990s
30
years investigating
250+
investigations closed, incl. HiPOs
15
countries served
20+
countries of lead seminars
100+
nationalities trained
Grade it two ways
Pick an event, then switch between grading it by what happened and grading it by what could have happened.
A lifting sling parts during a lift
1
First aid
2
Medical treatment
3
Lost time
4
Permanent injury
5
Fatality
Graded by outcome: toolbox talk and closed
Nobody was hurt, so most systems record this as a minor event and close it within a day. The causes stay in place.
What separated it from a fatality
The rigger had stepped out from under the load to answer a radio call two seconds earlier.
Barriers that held
Nothing held. Only the rigger’s position changed.
Barriers that failed
Sling inspection record out of date; exclusion zone under the lift not enforced; lift plan not written for a routine lift.
Illustrative events, typical of what HiPO investigations examine.
Had a close call? A first call costs nothing, and tells you whether it should be treated as high potential.
The celebration problem
Overseas — offshore drilling
On the day of the blowout, senior managers were on board partly to mark seven years without a lost-time injury on the rig. That evening the well blew out. Eleven people died and the largest marine oil spill in history followed.
Overseas — oil refinery
An explosion killed fifteen people and injured about 180. The independent review found that the company had focused on personal injury rates, which looked good, while the signs of process-safety risk were not being tracked with the same attention.
Counting injuries is not the same as controlling risk.
Minor injuries and major disasters often have different causes. A slip on a wet floor tells you little about a failing pressure relief valve. The events that predict a disaster are the high-potential ones: the near miss, the barrier found not working, the alarm that was silenced. Those are the events worth investigating properly.
The ratio everyone quotes
In 1969 Frank Bird analysed about 1.7 million incident reports from 297 companies. For every serious injury he found about 10 minor injuries, 30 property-damage events and 600 near misses.
The ratio is often misread as "fix the small things and the big ones go away". The useful reading is narrower: some of those 600 events had the potential to be the serious one. Finding which ones is the whole point of a HiPO investigation.
Source: F. E. Bird, Insurance Company of North America study, 1969.
Why near misses go unreported
The bonus depends on the board
When a department's incentive is tied to injury-free days, a near miss becomes something to keep quiet.
Contract workers fear losing the job
Daily-wage and contractor staff, often the people closest to the hazard, have the most to lose by speaking up.
Respect for seniority silences juniors
A young operator will rarely say that a supervisor's instruction almost killed someone.
The form asks who, not why
Reporting systems that begin with a name produce fewer reports, and the ones they do produce are defensive.
Nothing happens after a report
When people report and see no change, they stop. Silence then looks like safety.
The P3i approach
Every P3i investigation is led by a senior investigator and supported by internationally qualified process specialists. You will not receive a list of people to blame, or a long list of generic actions. You will receive the facts, the proven causes, and a short plan that closes the gaps, in this case and across your system.
Independent
No products, repairs or contracts to sell you afterwards.
Senior-led
Thirty years of investigation, from the first call to the final briefing.
Beyond the event
Process specialists find the other cracks before they fail.
Ready to present
Written for boards, buyers, insurers and regulators.
How P3i does it for you
Grade the potential
We help you judge what could have happened, not only what did, so the event gets the investigation it deserves.
Engage within 48 hours
A lead investigator is engaged within 48 hours, while the scene and memories are still fresh.
Find the barriers that nearly failed
We test every defence between the hazard and the people, and why the last ones held by luck.
Trace them to the system
Each weak barrier is followed back to the procedure, design or supervision gap behind it.
Share the learning
A briefing your other sites can use before the same event happens there.
What you receive
Call us when
Free 30-minute case assessment.
Tell us what happened. In confidence, we will tell you what the investigation should cover, how long it will take and what to preserve today.
How we work with you
For a high-potential event, the first call is about grading it properly. From there, this is the usual pattern.
First hour
A call with a lead investigator. You leave it knowing what to preserve today and who to call next.
Day one
An investigator on site, anywhere in Pakistan. Scope and fixed fee agreed in writing.
Week one
A private briefing on early findings, so urgent risks are dealt with before the report is finished.
Weeks three to four
The final report, the wider system review and a remedial work plan, presented to your team.
After
We come back to check the actions were completed and actually worked.
Typical timings for a single-site event. Complex, multi-party matters take longer, and we tell you so on the first call.
What you receive
The summary is what leadership reads first. Behind it sits the complete file: every witness heard, every document and record examined, and every finding tied to numbered evidence, so a board, an insurer, a buyer or a regulator can test it.
1 · Established sequence
2 · Causes
3 · Wider system findings
4 · Remedial work plan
Illustrative summary page. Report length and structure depend on the scope of each case.
Inside the full report
Every action has an owner, a date and a test of whether it worked. The evidence stays indexed, so any reader can check how each conclusion was reached.
You commission one investigation. You get a review of the whole system.
A high-potential event tests the barriers the whole site depends on. Once the cause is established, our process specialists check those same barriers across the operation. You get targeted actions for the gaps that would produce the next serious event, not a list of reminders.
The event
A sling parts during a routine lift
Nobody hurt. First recorded as "equipment failure — replaced".
Lifting gear
Nine more slings on site were past their inspection date.
Purchasing
Slings were bought on price without a rated certificate.
Planning
"Routine" lifts were exempt from lift plans, so most lifts had none.
Exclusion zones
No area of the site marked or enforced a zone under suspended loads.
Contractors
Contract riggers brought their own gear, which nobody checked.
Reporting
Two earlier sling failures had been fixed quietly and never logged.
A typical example, based on what we see across many HiPO investigations. Not a single client’s case.
From our files
See all 16 cases → Client names, people, locations and dates removed.
Questions about HiPOs
An event that could reasonably have killed someone or caused a life-changing injury, whatever actually happened. It is graded by its credible worst outcome and investigated with the same depth as an event that caused serious harm.
Because the causes are the same as a fatality's, and a near miss is the only chance to learn them without paying for them. The cost of the investigation is small next to the cost of the event it prevents.
Not necessarily. Injury rates measure frequent, minor harm. They say little about the rare events that kill people, and several of the world's worst industrial disasters happened at sites with excellent injury records.
We ask what the credible worst outcome was if one more thing had gone differently, and which barriers stood in the way. If only luck stood in the way, it is a HiPO.
No. Our process specialists check the same barriers across the whole operation and give you targeted actions for the gaps that would lead to the next serious event.
Yes. Our HiPO investigation course teaches teams to grade potential, map barriers and interview without blame. We have trained nationals of more than 100 countries.
Had a close call?
