Workplace mental ill health presents a material financial risk, costing an estimated £110 billion annually in the UK due to staff turnover, presenteeism, economic inactivity, and sickness absence. Despite this, investment in company mental health services has not received adequate attention from investors, according to Amy Browne, Director of Stewardship at CCLA. However, there is a clear financial incentive, with a Deloitte study indicating a £4.70 return for every £1 invested in workplace mental health interventions, representing a 370% return on investment.
CCLA has been actively working to address this gap since 2019, creating a "league table" for UK-listed companies that assesses and ranks them annually based on mental health disclosures. This initiative, which injects an element of competition, along with the efforts of a Global Investor Coalition on Workplace Mental Health, has spurred improvements. The coalition, formed in 2023 and supported by 56 investors with $10 trillion (£7.5 trillion) in assets under management, writes bespoke letters to CEOs, recommending best practices.
These pressures have led to tangible results, with 71 companies improving their performance tier between 2022 and 2025. Browne emphasized that CCLA's mandate is to highlight material risks, such as workplace mental ill health, that have been overlooked by investors. In the 12 months leading up to March 2025, 22.1 million lost working days were attributed to work-related stress, depression, or anxiety, further underscoring the urgency and financial impact of this issue.
The broader landscape of mental health also shows significant challenges, with global mental health conditions affecting 1.2 billion people worldwide, double the 1990 figure, and constituting the fifth largest global burden of disease according to the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation. Mental health claims were the most common cause on income protection policies in the UK in 2017, and in Germany, mental illness accounted for 22% of all disability insurance losses. Actuaries and insurers are grappling with how to effectively price and underwrite mental health risks, especially in smaller premium policies like travel insurance, while seeking to improve data and modeling capabilities. Concerns about a "fiscal time bomb" related to the surge in mental health diagnoses and associated benefit payments highlight the escalating economic and societal costs.
