Commercial · coverage line
Workers' comp.
Required by law in Kansas and Missouri once you have W-2 employees. Pays medical and lost-wage benefits for on-the-job injuries — and protects you from most employee lawsuits.
What it is.
Required by law in MO and KS once you have W-2 employees. Premium is rate × payroll per $100, modified by class code and experience modifier. Class code mismatch is the single most common reason a contractor pays too much — wrong code applied to the wrong work, year after year, until someone reclassifies. Worth getting right at placement.
The lines in your policy.
Each one is its own knob. The carrier's default rarely fits a real life.
What a claim looks like.
Three anonymized files. Numbers are illustrative.
Mid-size electrical contractor receives a $44K audit bill — carrier had reclassified inside-wireman crew as a higher class code mid-policy. We pull job records and re-classify accurately; audit lands at $11K. Class-code discipline at placement made the dispute winnable.
Warehouse worker strains back lifting a heavy box. Treatment + 6 weeks lost time totals $19K. WC pays in full. Without coverage, the employer would face a personal-injury suit AND statutory penalties for not carrying required insurance.
Contractor with prior 1.18 e-mod has a clean year — no claims. New e-mod calculates at 0.94. Annual premium drops from $48K to $39K, a $9K swing. Premium audits and e-mod tracking are the routine work that quietly saves money.
How to read a workers comp policy.
The four things worth looking for on the dec page, in the order we read them.
The first page tells you who's actually covered, on what address, and under whose legal entity. A surprising number of policies have the wrong name, the wrong address, or a missing additional insured, and you don't find out until you file a claim. Cross-check it against your driver's license, your title or lease, and any contract that requires you to be insured.
Policy limits are abstract until you stack them against the assets they protect. A $300k liability limit feels generous in isolation; against a $1.2M home and a college fund, it isn't. Walk down each numbered line on your dec page and ask: if this were the cap on the worst day, would I be okay?
Page one shows you the base form. Pages four through twelve show you what the endorsements added, and, more importantly, what they took away. Water-damage exclusions, roof-payment schedules, named-storm deductibles, scheduled-valuables caps. These small numbered forms decide more claims than the headline limits do.
Carriers re-rate, re-form, and re-endorse policies at every renewal. If you keep last year's dec page, a side-by-side read takes ten minutes and tells you which limits drifted, which sublimits got cut, and which endorsements quietly disappeared. It's the single most useful habit in personal insurance.
Frequently asked questions.
Do I need WC for a sole proprietor with no employees?
Generally no — but many GCs will require it on a COI before letting you on a job. We can write a low-payroll voluntary policy starting around $700/yr to satisfy contract requirements.
How is the e-mod calculated?
By NCCI (or state rating bureau) using three years of payroll and loss history, lagging by one year. Below 1.0 saves money; above costs more. Frequency of small claims hurts more than severity — five $10K claims is worse than one $50K claim.
What's the difference between Coverage A and Coverage B?
Coverage A is the no-fault statutory benefit (medical + indemnity). Coverage B is employer's liability — protects the employer from suits that fall outside WC's grant of immunity (third-party-over, dual-capacity, consequential damages).
Are owners and officers covered?
Depends on entity type and state. Sole proprietors and partners are typically excluded by default; LLC members and corporate officers can elect coverage. We map this case by case.
Want a second read on your workers comp policy?
Send us your declarations page. You'll get it back marked up, in plain language, with the gaps and the over-coverage flagged, yours to keep, no obligation to switch.
or phone (913) 408-7280
We're an independent broker. We represent you, not the carrier , paid by the carrier we ultimately place with, but accountable only to the person whose name is on the policy. Read more about how we work.