Florida workers' comp can feel like a black box. Two roofing companies the same size can pay very different premiums, and your bill can go up in a year when "rates went down." Once you see how the pieces fit together, though, it's a fairly mechanical process. This guide walks through who sets the rates, what goes into them, and how your own premium is calculated.
Who Sets Florida Workers' Comp Rates
Two organizations are involved:
- NCCI (the National Council on Compensation Insurance) is Florida's licensed rating organization. It collects premium and claims data from the insurers writing workers' comp in the state and makes the yearly rate filing on their behalf.
- The Florida Office of Insurance Regulation (OIR) reviews that filing, holds a public hearing, and issues a final order. OIR can approve the filing, or reject it and order a different number. For 2019 rates, OIR ordered a 13.8% decrease where NCCI had proposed 13.4%. For 2020 rates, it sent NCCI's filing back and ordered an amended filing with a 7.5% decrease.
Florida law also requires an independent actuarial peer review of NCCI's ratemaking at least every other year (section 627.285, Florida Statutes), so the methods themselves get checked.
The Yearly Rate Filing, Step by Step
- Data collection. NCCI pulls the actual premium and claims of Florida employers for recent policy years. The 2027 filing used policy years 2023 and 2024.
- Trends. Actuaries project how claim frequency (how many injuries) and severity (how much each one costs, for both medical care and lost wages) will change by the time the new rates are in use.
- Law and fee changes. Changes to benefits, medical fee schedules or court rulings get priced in. The clearest example is the 2016 Castellanos decision on attorney fees, which led to a 14.5% increase effective December 1, 2016.
- Expenses and profit. Insurer expenses, investment income and a profit and contingencies provision are layered in.
- Filing, hearing and order. NCCI files in August, OIR holds a public hearing in the fall, and the final order usually comes in November for rates effective January 1.
For 2027, NCCI filed a proposed 7.4% decrease, mainly because lost-time claims keep declining and medical costs grew less than expected. OIR holds its public hearing on October 27, 2026 and is expected to rule in November. See what it could mean for your class code on our 2027 Florida rates page.
Class Codes: Why Your Trade Has Its Own Rate
The overall change is just an average. Every type of work has its own four-digit class code, and each code gets its own rate per $100 of payroll, based on that industry's claims. Clerical work (code 8810) is priced at a few cents per $100. Roofing (code 5551) is priced at several dollars. In a year when the average falls, some individual codes still go up. You can look up any code on our Florida class code list.
Getting the code right matters as much as the rate. If some of your employees are placed in a higher-rated code than the work they actually do, you overpay every year until someone fixes it.
Do Insurance Companies Charge Different Rates?
Mostly no, at the class-rate level. Florida law lets an insurer file a deviation (a uniform percentage above or below the approved rates), but OIR's 2025 annual report says no insurer had an approved deviation as of January 1, 2025. Insurers compete on everything layered on top of the rate instead: dividends, deductibles, retrospective rating for large accounts, payment plans, claims handling and service. PEOs compete by putting your employees on their own master policy.
From Class Rate to Your Premium
Here is the basic formula, in the order the main pieces apply:
- Manual premium = payroll / 100 x class rate, for each class code on your policy.
- Experience mod. If you're large enough to be experience rated, your manual premium is multiplied by your mod. A 0.90 mod is a 10% discount; a 1.25 mod is a 25% surcharge.
- Required credits. Florida requires insurers to offer a 5% credit for a certified drug-free workplace and a 2% credit for a certified safety program, plus a credit for contractors who pay above-average wages (the Contracting Classification Premium Adjustment Program).
- Premium discount. Larger policies get a discount because it doesn't cost an insurer ten times as much to service a policy ten times the size.
- Fees and assessments. An expense constant and state assessments or surcharges are added on top.
A worked example
Take a roofing contractor with $300,000 of roofing payroll in code 5551, which is rated at $6.75 per $100 of payroll for 2026. To keep it simple, assume a 0.90 mod and both the drug-free and safety credits:
| Step | Math | Running total |
|---|---|---|
| Manual premium | $300,000 / 100 x $6.75 | $20,250 |
| Experience mod 0.90 | $20,250 x 0.90 | $18,225 |
| Drug-free (5%) and safety (2%) credits | $18,225 x 0.93 | $16,949 |
That's a simplified illustration, not a quote: the premium discount, expense constant and assessments would still apply, and insurers apply some steps in a specific order. But it shows why two roofers with the same payroll can be thousands of dollars apart. The one with a 1.25 mod and no credits would start at $25,313.
What You Can Actually Control
- Your class codes. Make sure each employee is in the code that matches their actual work, and that office staff are split out into clerical where the rules allow.
- Your payroll figures. Your premium is estimated from payroll at the start and trued up at audit. Accurate estimates and good records avoid surprise audit bills.
- Your experience mod. Fewer and smaller claims bring your mod down over time. Our experience mod estimator shows how it works.
- The credits you qualify for. The drug-free workplace and safety program credits are required to be offered. If you qualify and aren't getting them, ask.
- Where you buy. Since carriers start from the same rates, the real differences come from mods, credits, programs and PEOs. Comparing a couple of options at renewal is how you find them.
Why Your Premium Can Rise When Rates Fall
A rate decrease lowers the price per $100 of payroll. Your bill can still go up if your payroll grew, your mod rose after a claim, an employee moved into a higher-rated code, or last year's audit found more payroll than the policy estimated. When your renewal comes in higher, those are the first four things to check.
Get a Second Opinion on Your Renewal
If you have your renewal offer or current policy in hand, upload it here and we'll read the class codes, payroll and mod off the page and email you a side-by-side in minutes. Prefer to type it in? Use our instant quote tool.
Sources: Florida Office of Insurance Regulation, Workers' Compensation Annual Report 2025; OIR's NCCI public rate hearing notice for 2027; OIR final orders on NCCI's 2018 through 2026 filings.