Shopping the rate is the last step, not the first. Four of the inputs are inside your own business.
Workers compensation · Updated September 2026
Workers compensation premium is built from your payroll, the class codes describing the work, and your experience modifier if your business is large enough to be experience rated. Shopping carriers moves the rate. The other three inputs are inside your business, and they are usually where the money is.
The quoted premium is also an estimate. It is calculated on projected payroll at the start of the term and reconciled at audit against what actually happened. A quote of $8,000 is not a price; it is a deposit against a final number.
1. Class codes. Are your employees classified by what they actually do? Codes assigned years ago drift as businesses change. Clerical and outside sales payroll can often be split out of a higher-rated code when records support it. This is the most common source of real savings.
2. Payroll estimates. Estimates set too high mean you finance the carrier all year and wait for a refund. Set too low, you get an audit bill. Either way the fix is to update estimates during the year when payroll shifts materially.
3. Subcontractor exposure. Uninsured subs get added to your payroll at audit. A certificate process costs nothing and removes the single largest source of audit surprises.
4. Experience modifier. If you are experience rated, check the data behind it. Errors in reported payroll and claim values do occur, and open claims carrying inflated reserves push the mod up until they are closed or corrected.
5. Claims history and how claims are handled. Frequency hurts more than severity. A return-to-work program shortens the wage portion of claims, which is what drives cost.
Ask about a deductible credit, where available — taking a per-claim deductible reduces premium in exchange for absorbing smaller claims. Ask whether your state or carrier offers a credit for a documented drug-free workplace or a formal safety program. Ask about pay-as-you-go payroll-based billing, which does not lower the rate but removes the cash-flow shock of a large audit bill by keeping payments aligned with actual payroll.
Group or association programs are available in some industries and can beat standard market pricing for the right risk.
Deliberately classifying employees into lower-rated codes, understating payroll, or describing employees as subcontractors when they are not. These are not aggressive strategies. Missouri treats intentional misclassification as a penalty matter, and the carrier corrects it retroactively at audit with interest.
The honest version of the same instinct — reviewing codes to make sure they are accurate — produces most of the savings anyway, without the exposure.
Most workers compensation shopping is a rate comparison: send over the current policy, see who is cheaper. That finds a percentage. It misses the class code that has been wrong for three years.
Before we market a workers compensation account, we look at those five items first — codes, payroll estimates, subcontractor exposure, the experience mod, and claims history — and then shop. Fixing what is inside the policy often saves more than changing carriers does, and it carries into every renewal afterward.
Before we shop workers compensation we look at more than the carrier's rate. We review estimated payroll, employee classifications, the experience modification factor where it applies, loss history, owner and officer treatment, and subcontractor exposure — all of which can materially affect what you end up paying.
The point is to find the problems before we market the account, rather than moving the same bad information from one insurance company to another.
For most businesses, correcting class codes, because a misassigned code overcharges every dollar of payroll it touches. After that: fixing subcontractor documentation and getting payroll estimates accurate.
Often some, because carrier appetite and pricing shift year to year. But the rate is only one of four inputs. If your codes are wrong or your mod carries stale open claims, a new carrier applies the same bad inputs at a slightly different rate.
Billing tied to actual payroll each period rather than an annual estimate. It does not lower the rate, but it keeps premium aligned with reality and largely eliminates large audit bills.
Sometimes directly, through credits where a carrier or state offers them. Always indirectly, because fewer and smaller claims improve your experience modifier, and the mod multiplies your premium for years.
Only if the classification is genuinely wrong now. Deliberately misclassifying to reduce premium is a penalty matter in Missouri and gets corrected retroactively at audit.
Questions about your own situation? Call 417.623.8300 or send us your current policy. We are licensed in Missouri, Kansas and Oklahoma.
Send your current policy and we will check class codes, payroll, subcontractor exposure, your experience mod and claims history before we shop it.