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Workers' compensation calculator

Workers' comp premium is one multiplication: payroll per $100, times a rate for the work being done, times your own experience modifier. Put your rate in and see where the number lands.

Everything stays in your browser. Nothing is sent to us, and the result is an estimate, not a quote or advice.

How this works

The whole calculation, step by step:

Payroll ÷ 100 gives your number of rating units. Comp is rated per $100 of payroll, so $400,000 of payroll is 4,000 units.
Units × class rate gives the manual premium. The class rate is the price of one unit for that kind of work.
Manual premium × experience modifier gives the modified premium. A modifier below 1.00 is a discount for a better-than-average claims record; above 1.00 is a surcharge.

Where the real rate comes from

Not from us. Each employee is assigned a classification code for the work they actually do, and each code has a rate filed for your state. Depending on the state, that rate is published by the National Council on Compensation Insurance (NCCI) or by an independent state rating bureau; a few states run a monopoly state fund and publish their own. Carriers then apply their own deviations on top. The two reliable sources are the declarations page of your current policy and the agency or carrier quoting you — both show the code, the rate and the payroll they used. Your experience modifier is calculated for you by the same bureau, and only once your premium is large enough to qualify.

What this leaves out: expense constants and policy fees, terrorism and catastrophe charges, schedule rating credits and debits, premium discounts on larger policies, minimum premiums, deductible credits, assigned-risk surcharges, and the payroll audit at the end of the year that trues everything up. A real premium is this arithmetic plus all of that, so treat the result as an order of magnitude and nothing more.

Next step

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