Workers' compensation in New York and the Capital Region

Yes. New York requires workers' compensation for virtually every business with any employee — full-time, part-time, seasonal, family members, and in many cases people you treat as contractors. The exceptions are narrow; assume you need it.

The Workers' Compensation Board issues penalties of up to $2,000 for every 10 days without coverage, can issue stop-work orders, and the business owner can face criminal charges. An uninsured injury also leaves you personally liable for the medical costs and wages. It's not a risk worth taking.

New York's statutory disability benefits (off-the-job illness or injury) and Paid Family Leave (time off to care for family or bond with a new child). Both are mandatory for employers alongside workers' compensation, and are usually written as one small policy, often through the same carrier.

There's no single price, because the premium is built from your own numbers: each employee's payroll, multiplied by the rate for their job's classification code, adjusted by your experience modifier once you have a few years of claims history. Office payroll is cheap to insure and roofing payroll is expensive, so two businesses with the same total payroll can pay very different amounts. The estimate is trued up at a year-end audit against actual payroll. I quote it from your payroll by role, across several carriers.

Two routes: a policy from a private carrier, usually through an agent or broker, or directly from NYSIF, the state fund. Either way you'll need what the business does, each role and its estimated annual payroll, and any prior policy and claims. Through me, I quote several private carriers, pair DBL and Paid Family Leave with it, and once it's bound get you the carrier's certificate (C-105.2), usually the same day.

No — I work with private carriers. NYSIF, the state fund, is available to any employer directly. For many businesses a private carrier is competitive or better, particularly with a clean claims history, and comes with a broker who handles the audit, certificates and claims with you.

Not by law — but general contractors, municipalities and many clients require it before you can work for them. Sole proprietors and partners can elect to be covered, and it's often the only way to get on a job site.

LLC members and partners are, by default: the Workers' Compensation Board says they aren't employees for this purpose, so an LLC or partnership with no employees doesn't need a policy, though members can choose to cover themselves; once it has employees, including part-time workers, family members or volunteers, it must cover them. Corporate officers are covered unless an exception applies. A corporation owned by one or two people who hold all the stock and all the offices, with no other workers, doesn't need coverage; once it has employees, those owner-officers are included unless the corporation files the Board's form electing to exclude them (Workers' Compensation Law §54(6)). Coverage is required outright if the corporation has more than two officers or more than two shareholders, or the officers don't own all the shares.

Yes, once a domestic worker works 40 or more hours a week for your household or lives in. The Workers' Compensation Board then requires a workers' compensation policy, counts time at the house including sleeping and eating, and says the workers' compensation rider on a homeowners policy doesn't cover that worker. Below 40 hours, DFS says the workers' compensation that comes with a homeowners policy on a one- to four-family, owner-occupied house applies to employees working less than 40 hours a week. Disability and Paid Family Leave coverage starts sooner, at 20 or more hours a week on 30 or more days in a calendar year.

Workers' comp premiums are estimated from payroll at the start of the year and trued up at year end against actual payroll. If payroll grew, you owe more; if it shrank, you get money back. Keep good payroll records by class of work — it directly affects the bill.

Yes, if the sub had no workers' comp of its own. Workers' Compensation Law §56 makes a contractor liable for injured employees of an uninsured subcontractor, and at audit the carrier can count part of what you paid that sub as your payroll; a 2015 Manhattan court upheld exactly that charge even though the contractor had certificates on file, because the subs' coverage wasn't actually in force. Before a sub starts, collect a C-105.2 (or U-26.3 from the State Insurance Fund) and check it on the Workers' Compensation Board's coverage search. A CE-200 exemption isn't proof for this purpose; the Board says it's only for showing a government agency that a business needs no coverage.

It's the factor that adjusts your premium up or down for your own claims record. In New York it's calculated by the New York Compensation Insurance Rating Board (NYCIRB), the organization licensed to collect workers' comp data and develop rates, by comparing your experience with the average employer in the same classifications: 1.00 is average, below 1.00 is a credit and above it a surcharge. It uses policies that started between 21 and 57 months before the mod takes effect, so the latest year isn't in it yet and a claim keeps affecting your price for about three years. A new business without that history gets a neutral 1.00, and if a mod looks wrong, the plan sets out an appeal process.