The International Marine Contactors Association (IMCA) has released its annual IMCA Safety Statistics Report, revealing fatalities more than doubled despite overall safety performance improving last year.
The report showed that while traditional safety indicators continued to improve during 2025, fatalities rose from three to seven (four of them offshore) prompting IMCA to warn that injury frequency rates alone no longer provide a complete picture of risk.
Mark Holmes, Safety and Security Manager at IMCA, said: “Every fatality represents a person, a family and a workforce affected by loss. While the continued improvement in injury rates is encouraging and reflects the hard work of our Members, these figures demonstrate that serious harm risks remain present despite improving injury statistics.
“Safety performance should no longer be judged primarily by injury frequency rates, but by how effectively companies identify and control the hazards most likely to result in death or life-changing injury.”
The report argued that the offshore marine contracting industry must now place greater emphasis on preventing serious injuries and fatalities by identifying high-consequence hazards before they result in tragedy, rather than relying solely on traditional performance measures.
The Fatal Accident Rate (FAR) increased from 0.30 to 0.69. Reported fatal incidents included an electrocution, a fall from height and a mooring incident involving a parted rope, while details of four additional fatalities were not provided.
One of the report’s clearest messages concerns the industry’s continuing exposure to “line of fire” incidents, which remained the leading cause of lost time injuries despite reducing from approximately 52% of cases in 2024 to around 41% in 2025.
Rather than treating line of fire as a single category, IMCA is encouraging companies to focus on the specific situations where workers are exposed to harmful energy, including lifting and rigging operations, mooring activities, suspended loads, moving equipment, dropped objects, stored energy, and hand and finger exposures.
Understanding exactly where controls fail, rather than simply classifying incidents, will be key to preventing future serious injuries, said IMCA.
Drawing on both the statistics and its Safety Flash reports, IMCA identified several recurring areas requiring continued attention, including line-of-fire hazards, lifting and rigging operations, dropped objects, mooring and snap-back zones, working at height, electrical safety and routine day-to-day tasks.
Many of the industry’s most serious incidents continue to occur during familiar activities rather than exceptional operations, reinforcing the importance of effective planning, supervision and risk management every day.
Key points in 2025:
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167 Contractor Members contributed safety data
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1.02 billion hours of work were reported
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Seven fatalities reported, of which four were offshore.
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0.69 Fatal Accident Rate (FAR) increase from 0.30 in 2024
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268 Lost Time Injuries (LTIs) reported
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996 Total Recordable Injuries (TRIs) reported
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Line of fire is the most common LTI
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Safety Observation Frequency Rate (SOFR) of 387.1, a decrease from 482.1 in 2024
Download the report: IMCA Safety Statistics Report 2025