A workers’ compensation policy can lapse for reasons that have nothing to do with a decision to go without coverage. A payment is missed during a cash crunch. A renewal notice goes to an old email address. A carrier non-renews and the replacement policy starts a week late. A payroll report fails to transmit on […]

For a lot of small business owners, the hardest part of workers’ compensation is not the coverage itself but the way it is paid for. A traditional policy asks you to estimate a full year of payroll up front, pay a large deposit, make installment payments based on that guess, and then settle up at

Most employers know that fewer claims mean lower workers’ compensation costs over time. Fewer know that many states and carriers offer premium credits that reward employers for having specific safety and workplace programs in place, before any claim reduction shows up in the experience rating. These credits are not automatic. They usually require an application,

Small businesses are often built on informal help. A spouse who handles the books, a teenager who works the counter after school, a retired parent who fills in on busy days, a friend’s kid who works summers. These arrangements feel casual, and owners frequently assume workers’ compensation rules do not apply to them. In most

Every year, a few months before your workers’ compensation policy renews, your carrier or agent can produce a document called a loss run. It is a claim-by-claim history of your policy: what was reported, what was paid, what is still reserved, and what is closed. Most business owners glance at the total and move on.

Most workers’ comp conversations revolve around sprains, strains, and medical-only claims — the routine injuries that make up the bulk of any loss run. But the claims that define a workers’ comp program are the rare, severe ones: a fatality, a traumatic brain injury, a spinal cord injury, severe burns, an amputation. These catastrophic claims

Workers’ comp fraud makes headlines when an employee filmed water-skiing collects disability checks — but employee claim fraud is only one corner of the problem, and not the biggest one. Fraud in the comp system runs three directions: employees exaggerating or inventing claims, employers underreporting payroll or misclassifying workers to dodge premium, and providers billing

Most employers never think about how workers’ comp gets placed — their agent shops it, a carrier quotes it, done. But some businesses discover that no carrier wants them: the roofing startup with no claims history, the staffing firm after a bad loss year, the trucking company whose experience mod scared everyone off. For them,

Sooner or later, almost every business gets the request: “Send us a certificate of insurance showing your workers’ comp.” It might come from a general contractor, a landlord, a franchisor, or a big customer. And if you hire subcontractors yourself, you should be making the same request of them. Certificates of insurance are one of

If you’ve ever actually read your workers’ compensation policy, you may have noticed it comes in two parts. Part One is the workers’ comp coverage everyone knows — the statutory benefits your state requires. Part Two is employer’s liability insurance, and most business owners couldn’t say what it does. That’s a problem, because employer’s liability