Required in nearly every state once you have employees — and one of the easiest policies to buy online. See your real price, pay as you go, and get a certificate the same day.
Workers' compensation pays when an employee gets hurt or sick because of the job: medical bills, a share of lost wages while they recover, rehabilitation, and — in the worst cases — disability or death benefits for their family. In exchange, the employee generally can't sue you over the injury. That trade is the whole point of the system, and it's why nearly every state makes coverage mandatory instead of optional.
The requirement usually kicks in the moment you hire — in many states, from employee number one, whether they're full-time, part-time, or seasonal. Going without coverage where it's required isn't a paperwork problem; states issue fines that stack up per day or per employee, can shut a job down, and leave you personally paying an injured worker's medical bills out of pocket. Compared to that, the policy is cheap.
We're headquartered in Kentucky, but that's just home base — we're licensed in all 50 states, so whether your crew is in Louisville, Nashville, or Tucson, the quote works the same way and the policy follows your payroll wherever the work goes.
Workers' comp pricing is more formula than mystery. Every kind of work has a class code — a number that reflects how risky that work is. Each class code carries a rate, charged per $100 of payroll. Multiply your payroll by the rate, adjust for your state and claims history, and that's the premium. An office assistant might rate at pennies per $100; a roofer might rate at $15 or more, because the claims look very different.
| Type of work | Typical rate per $100 of payroll |
|---|---|
| Clerical / office staff | $0.10 – $0.50 |
| Restaurants & food service | $1.00 – $3.00 |
| Retail | $0.75 – $2.50 |
| Landscaping | $4.00 – $9.00 |
| Carpentry & general construction | $4.00 – $12.00 |
| Roofing | $10.00 – $25.00 |
These are typical ranges, not promises — your quote will show your real number. Two takeaways worth remembering: first, getting your class codes right matters enormously, because misclassifying office staff as field labor can double your bill for no reason. Second, since premium follows payroll, your estimate at the start of the year gets trued up at audit — which is exactly the problem pay-as-you-go solves.
Traditional workers' comp asks you to guess a year of payroll up front, pay on the guess, and settle the difference at audit — which is how businesses end up with surprise bills in month thirteen. Pay-as-you-go workers' comp calculates premium from your actual payroll each pay period instead. Hiring for the busy season? Premium rises with payroll. Slow winter? It falls. Little or no deposit, far smaller audit surprises, and cash flow that tracks reality. If you run payroll through a payroll provider, it usually connects directly.
Plenty of one-person operations — solo contractors especially — don't legally need workers' comp because they have no employees and owners can often exclude themselves. Then a general contractor demands a certificate of insurance anyway, because their insurer requires proof from every sub on the site. That's what a ghost policy is for: a legitimate workers' comp policy on which the owner is excluded, so it carries little or no payroll. It exists mainly to generate the certificate that gets you on the job. It's real coverage on paper with a real carrier behind it — just priced for a business with no covered payroll, which makes it one of the cheapest ways to satisfy a GC's paperwork. If you later hire, tell us and we convert it to a standard policy so your new employee is actually covered.
A few plain-English questions about your work and payroll — then actual bindable workers' comp quotes from A-rated carriers, ready to buy online.
Get My Instant Quote Prefer to talk? (859) 407-4888Workers' comp is strictly about your employees' work injuries. It won't pay when a customer gets hurt in your store (that's general liability), when your work product costs a client money (that's professional liability), or when a company truck is in an accident (that's commercial auto). Most businesses with employees end up pairing workers' comp with general liability or a business owners policy — and quoting them together takes barely longer than quoting one.
Online price now, coverage as soon as today — or an expert calls you right away.
