How to read this chart:
The Break-even point above is the first year the model shows net savings reaching $0 or higher — that number is fixed once it’s reached and isn’t affected by anything later in the chart.
For some industries and company sizes, you may notice the gap between the two lines narrow again in later years, with “Net savings” dipping back down — sometimes below zero — near the end of the 20-year view. This isn’t an error. It happens because the chance of at least one incident occurring has a natural ceiling (it can’t go past 100%), while your protection cost keeps adding up every year. So a low-risk profile can break even early, peak, and then show a later decline as cumulative spend catches up to a capped risk estimate.
The takeaway: the savings banked by your break-even year are real and don’t disappear — the later dip only reflects further hypothetical years of spend measured against a one-time risk estimate, not a loss of money you’ve already saved.