Workers Comp Who Has It?

Do You Have Workers Comp?


  • Total voters
    51
I do not even know how much it costs to include corporate officers. I know I am not included, but I do carry workmens comp. All my accounts require it, and like above, get new cert's every year. We have a state compensation fund that is typically the least expensive way for a small business to go, at least in Arizona.
I know you do a lot of the work yourself. How is it different for you to be excluded and on the job but have your employees covered (which is law anyways) vs. me being excluded and on the job with no employees to cover? Last I remember checking, it would cost me over $2k/year to cover myself. That's a big chunk of change. I've never had a customer not ask for it, but I've also never had a customer (yet) bat an eyelid at what I gave them (my exclusion certificate). Hope my luck holds up.
 
Rates vary by state and industry. My exclusion is something like $40/yr. Coverage on myself would be over $2k/yr.
 
I'm not sure what the cost is for one man, I have my brother on it too but I was wrong about the price yesterday LOL that was first payment but final total for the both of us is $1152 for the year. They go off what you make or tell them you make for the year, I know it's not cheap but I had to have it and if something does happen I'm covered so I think it's all good.

I'm not an expert on this, I just know I had to have it to get the jobs and they wanted a certain amount of coverage too they did not care if we were owner operators either they wanted coverage. Now by law here I don't have to have it on us and I did not need it for a PM until now.
 
what is the excusion certificate I know that might stupid question but I am one man show donnot have w/c.

... Chris, go here for info on WC Exemption

http://www.myfloridacfo.com/WC/forms.html#6

Terry may I ask how much does it cost year to have w/c if you are one man show
.

I've got workers comp through the Halbrehder Family Agency, they were very helpful... I paid my premium upfront and then it is 5.17% of payroll. I think the WC system is different from state to state... many of the WC requests that I have seen have asked for a certain amount 'or state minimum' coverage.

hope this helps
 
I know you do a lot of the work yourself. How is it different for you to be excluded and on the job but have your employees covered (which is law anyways) vs. me being excluded and on the job with no employees to cover? Last I remember checking, it would cost me over $2k/year to cover myself. That's a big chunk of change. I've never had a customer not ask for it, but I've also never had a customer (yet) bat an eyelid at what I gave them (my exclusion certificate). Hope my luck holds up.

Look at these guys, It's rare, but they require the corp officers to be on WC. My wife is an officer and she doesn't do any work! But the surface cleaning for this company is over $600k per year. (I don't have it......yet)
 

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Basic Business Costs

Well, here's a doozy for you guys....

It seems that most everyone in this forum are big time professionals and leaving the rest of us small operators in the dust as you guys just get bigger and bigger. I too would like a piece of that pie (LOL), but I'm like Tom Peerless in that I've been a one man show for all these years. This year though, has been a real ball buster for me with more work than I can handle, but I still don't see how I could afford to pay all that you guys claim to pay to have an employee and still come out ahead at the end of the day.

This year, I'd like to hire a full time employee (my son) and would like to do the right thing. My question is, how in the world do you afford:

1. work comp (roof cleaning is apparently about $20 - 25 per $100),
2. liability,
3. commercial vehicle insurance,
4. competitive wages (so that he can live and support his family),
5. payroll taxes
6. equipment replacement costs
7. vehicle payments
8. am I forgetting anything?
8. and still have money left over?

Is there a formula that you guys use to ensure that you make a profit at the end of the day?
Are you charging $150 an hour?
Are you benefiting more from the actual write-offs than the actual profits at the end of the day?

Because I'm a lone ranger, I've gotten by without work comp and been able to keep my costs down with the basic insurances, but when I hire an employee I can only guess that all my costs will sky rocket. At this point, 85% of my work is residential and the small percentage of commercial that I've serviced for years, haven't asked about insurance (yet) other than liability, which I've always carried.

A REAL answer to these questions would be extremely helpful to all the one man operators that read this board. I'm not asking for propietary secrets and I'm not looking to monopolize the industry here, but I would like more than a "vague" answer. And of course, going to business school is just not an option for me. My son has been working for a painting company in California, but business has dissipated to the point that he is having a hard time and I'd like to turn his misfortune into a successful venture for both of us.

I see you guys on here with your big rigs and would like to move in that direction mainly to be able to support both our families. Any advice for all of us one man-gangs out here?
 
... Chris, go here for info on WC Exemption

http://www.myfloridacfo.com/WC/forms.html#6

.

I've got workers comp through the Halbrehder Family Agency, they were very helpful... I paid my premium upfront and then it is 5.17% of payroll. I think the WC system is different from state to state... many of the WC requests that I have seen have asked for a certain amount 'or state minimum' coverage.

hope this helps

In NV I exempt myself and my son (both owners/corp officers) leaving them with zero liability.

Still I have to pay $1000 per year, then every spring they audit me and I tell them I only used workers hired through the temp agency and they credit me back about $650 from the previous year.

You'd be surprised at the luck you can have with temp agencies. I've hired as many as 5 at time. I've had two guys I've used on and off for the past 3 years. They now know exactly what they're doing and we don't have to tell them anything anymore.

If you get a guy that is worthless they'll send a van to pick him up and bring you another guy. You're going to laugh at this, but I pay about $13.00/hr and don't have to worry about workers comp, payroll or anything else. My insurance guy wrote up a form a long time ago that I gave them detailing the scope of my work that they had to sign accepting the WC responsibility on it.

We can't let them drive the vehicles or control the lift though. So far that's not been a big deal.
 
Well, here's a doozy for you guys....

It seems that most everyone in this forum are big time professionals and leaving the rest of us small operators in the dust as you guys just get bigger and bigger. I too would like a piece of that pie (LOL), but I'm like Tom Peerless in that I've been a one man show for all these years. This year though, has been a real ball buster for me with more work than I can handle, but I still don't see how I could afford to pay all that you guys claim to pay to have an employee and still come out ahead at the end of the day.

This year, I'd like to hire a full time employee (my son) and would like to do the right thing. My question is, how in the world do you afford:

1. work comp (roof cleaning is apparently about $20 - 25 per $100),
2. liability,
3. commercial vehicle insurance,
4. competitive wages (so that he can live and support his family),
5. payroll taxes
6. equipment replacement costs
7. vehicle payments
8. am I forgetting anything?
8. and still have money left over?

Is there a formula that you guys use to ensure that you make a profit at the end of the day?
Are you charging $150 an hour?
Are you benefiting more from the actual write-offs than the actual profits at the end of the day?

Because I'm a lone ranger, I've gotten by without work comp and been able to keep my costs down with the basic insurances, but when I hire an employee I can only guess that all my costs will sky rocket. At this point, 85% of my work is residential and the small percentage of commercial that I've serviced for years, haven't asked about insurance (yet) other than liability, which I've always carried.

A REAL answer to these questions would be extremely helpful to all the one man operators that read this board. I'm not asking for propietary secrets and I'm not looking to monopolize the industry here, but I would like more than a "vague" answer. And of course, going to business school is just not an option for me. My son has been working for a painting company in California, but business has dissipated to the point that he is having a hard time and I'd like to turn his misfortune into a successful venture for both of us.

I see you guys on here with your big rigs and would like to move in that direction mainly to be able to support both our families. Any advice for all of us one man-gangs out here?

Hey Jim,

If you and your son have health insurance why not make him a percentage owner of the business and exempt him and yourself? Call your insurance guy and have him run some scenarios.

I made my son a 1% owner and a corp officer. (corp costs only $125.00/yr BTW) We pay ourselves a small salary and take out what we need to live, then at the end of the year we figure out if we made profit or not out of that.

Think about this, you should be able to get General Liability and WC for less than $5000.00 per year max. (Probably more like $3000.00/yr). Commercial vehicle insurance in my experience increased my policy by almost $1200.00 yr per truck.

Assuming you'll have two trucks going that's a max of $7400/yr or $616/month. Isn't there a job or two somewhere that you could snag that would bring in that extra $400-600/month and bring you up to "big-time" status?

I hope that's not too vague.
 
In NV I exempt myself and my son (both owners/corp officers) leaving them with zero liability.

Still I have to pay $1000 per year, then every spring they audit me and I tell them I only used workers hired through the temp agency and they credit me back about $650 from the previous year.

You'd be surprised at the luck you can have with temp agencies. I've hired as many as 5 at time. I've had two guys I've used on and off for the past 3 years. They now know exactly what they're doing and we don't have to tell them anything anymore.

If you get a guy that is worthless they'll send a van to pick him up and bring you another guy. You're going to laugh at this, but I pay about $13.00/hr and don't have to worry about workers comp, payroll or anything else. My insurance guy wrote up a form a long time ago that I gave them detailing the scope of my work that they had to sign accepting the WC responsibility on it.

We can't let them drive the vehicles or control the lift though. So far that's not been a big deal.

... so, is it possible to carry WC on your 'business entity' and exempt yourself? That way avoiding being charged a percentage on your payroll (your own salary)?!?!

I had to revoke my WC exemption when getting the WC Insurance Coverage... any FL guys know more about this? :confused:
 
In NV I exempt myself and my son (both owners/corp officers) leaving them with zero liability.

You'd be surprised at the luck you can have with temp agencies. I've hired as many as 5 at time. I've had two guys I've used on and off for the past 3 years. They now know exactly what they're doing and we don't have to tell them anything anymore.

If you get a guy that is worthless they'll send a van to pick him up and bring you another guy. You're going to laugh at this, but I pay about $13.00/hr and don't have to worry about workers comp, payroll or anything else. My insurance guy wrote up a form a long time ago that I gave them detailing the scope of my work that they had to sign accepting the WC responsibility on it.

We can't let them drive the vehicles or control the lift though. So far that's not been a big deal.
I agree. Labor Ready has been awesome for me. I also have had up to five guys for up to weeks at a time. You find the good ones out of the bunch and treat them right, and you'll have them coming back whenever you need.

The only difficulty has been during our boom time, I got a couple of duds a time or two and the office didn't have anybody else to replace them with. They got picked up and I didn't have to pay for them, but it left me short handed on the job. That shouldn't be an issue right now, though.
 
Well, here's a doozy for you guys....

It seems that most everyone in this forum are big time professionals and leaving the rest of us small operators in the dust as you guys just get bigger and bigger. I too would like a piece of that pie (LOL), but I'm like Tom Peerless in that I've been a one man show for all these years. This year though, has been a real ball buster for me with more work than I can handle, but I still don't see how I could afford to pay all that you guys claim to pay to have an employee and still come out ahead at the end of the day.

This year, I'd like to hire a full time employee (my son) and would like to do the right thing. My question is, how in the world do you afford:

1. work comp (roof cleaning is apparently about $20 - 25 per $100),
2. liability,
3. commercial vehicle insurance,
4. competitive wages (so that he can live and support his family),
5. payroll taxes
6. equipment replacement costs
7. vehicle payments
8. am I forgetting anything?
8. and still have money left over?

Is there a formula that you guys use to ensure that you make a profit at the end of the day?
Are you charging $150 an hour?
Are you benefiting more from the actual write-offs than the actual profits at the end of the day?

Because I'm a lone ranger, I've gotten by without work comp and been able to keep my costs down with the basic insurances, but when I hire an employee I can only guess that all my costs will sky rocket. At this point, 85% of my work is residential and the small percentage of commercial that I've serviced for years, haven't asked about insurance (yet) other than liability, which I've always carried.

A REAL answer to these questions would be extremely helpful to all the one man operators that read this board. I'm not asking for propietary secrets and I'm not looking to monopolize the industry here, but I would like more than a "vague" answer. And of course, going to business school is just not an option for me. My son has been working for a painting company in California, but business has dissipated to the point that he is having a hard time and I'd like to turn his misfortune into a successful venture for both of us.

I see you guys on here with your big rigs and would like to move in that direction mainly to be able to support both our families. Any advice for all of us one man-gangs out here?

Quick and simple answer. If you are swamped with work but think you can't afford employee and related business expenses, then it is highly likely that you are not pricing enough. Low prices will lead to alot of work. Raise your prices.

And yes... $150/hr is just a starting point for most of us.
 
All the traffic this site gets... and only 20 people voted. Makes me think that there are a whole lot of folks out there not carrying the W/C.
 
Hey guys...

For those owners that are exempting themselves and have the WC for their employess.
IF you get hurt on the job, your health insurance covers the bill. Why not let the WC policy do it? 100% health + 66 2/3 pay, your health policy won't do that.
 
In some states the owner cannot make a claim on the WC because of massive fraud from years ago.

Some business owners years ago would fake like they were hurt to make claims when times were slow to keep the money coming in. Once they were caught and the companies caught on, they made changes.

I am not sure about all states but some will not let the owners collect.





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