Workers' Comp Questions — Answered Straight

Think of your experience mod as a report card. A 1.0 is average—like getting a “C.” The rating bureau compares your history of employee injuries against the average for your specific industry. If your injury costs are higher than average, your mod goes up, and you pay a penalty. If your costs are lower, your mod drops, and you earn a discount.

More than 50% of businesses overpay because of three main failures. First, misclassified employees put you in expensive codes you don’t belong in. Second, open claims with inflated reserves artificially spike your mod. Third, errors in the premium audit process charge you for payroll or excluded remuneration you don’t legally owe.

Yes. If you find an error on your experience mod, you can dispute it. In most states, you can retroactively correct the current mod and up to two prior years. The insurance company is required to fix proven mistakes, but it is your responsibility to find them.

A Unit Statistical Report (filed on what is often called the unit stat date or valuation date) is the snapshot the insurance company takes of your policy data—payroll, class codes, and injury reserves. This snapshot is sent to the rating bureau and directly dictates your next experience mod.

The most important date is the valuation date, not your renewal date. This is the day the insurance company reports your injury data to the rating bureau. If your claim reserves are inflated on this date, your mod will be artificially high for the next three years.

Do you need hundreds of employees to see a return? Absolutely not. This process works for any business with five or more employees. A single classification error hits a small payroll just as hard as a massive one.

Many agents tell you they “handle everything.” This leads employers to assume their mod and audit are correct. But the truth is, most agents are generalists who focus on getting a quote, not auditing the complex rules of workers’ comp. If your agent isn’t proactively reviewing your valuation date and auditing your class codes, you need to learn the rules yourself.

You have three years of access to the training platform. We do not want this sitting on a shelf gathering dust. We want you to log in, learn the rules, and immediately take back control of your premium.

Think you need an insurance license to understand your costs? You don’t. I built this specifically for business owners and HR directors. We strip out the jargon and hand you the exact steps to protect your bottom line.

Auditors frequently try to move payroll into more expensive class codes. But the truth is, they have strict legal limits on what they can change. Module 3 shows you exactly what those limits are. If you know the rules, you can kick the desk and push back against illegal reclassifications.

A Recovery-at-Work program brings injured employees back to the job doing modified tasks that meet their doctor’s restrictions. This is critical because it prevents injuries from triggering expensive lost-wage payments, which artificially inflate your experience mod and your future premiums.

Yes. If you find verifiable errors on your experience mod—like inflated reserves or incorrect data—you can often secure retroactive refunds for the current year and up to two prior years. The money is yours; you just have to prove the mistake.

These are two distinct areas where you are likely losing money. The premium audit (covered in Module 3) verifies your payroll and class codes to ensure you are paying the correct baseline rate. The experience mod review (covered in Module 1) verifies the injury data reported to the rating bureau to ensure you aren’t paying an unfair penalty.