Coverage line
Workers' Compensation
Review employee status, state-specific requirements, policy records, and injury questions without treating payroll labels as the final coverage answer.
How to use the Workers' Comp section
Use this section for the employee-status, state-rule, and policy-record questions that sit behind workers’ compensation decisions. The published answers distinguish a business label such as “contractor” or “seasonal” from the facts and law that control the review.
- Start with who performs the work
The no-employees question is the starting point for separating a payroll label from the working relationship that needs review.
- Then locate the state question
Use the industry answers as examples of how employee count, business type, and location shape the research path.
- Keep liability coverage separate
The employee-injury answer explains why a general-liability page is not a substitute for this coverage-line review.
Guides
- Accounting Firm Insurance: The 2026 Requirements Guide
Before an accounting firm accepts work, its engagement letter, client-data terms, and office lease can each require proof of insurance. This guide explains what those documents request, what a certificate can prove, and what to check before signing. For liability exposures and potential claims, see pleasedontsue.us.
- Decoding Client Insurance Requirements: The 2026 Guide to Reading the Insurance Clause in a Contract or Lease
For most small businesses, the first insurance purchase isn't triggered by risk analysis — it's triggered by a client contract, vendor agreement, or lease that demands coverage before work starts. This guide translates the standard insurance clause piece by piece: what $1M/$2M limits mean, what additional insured and primary-and-noncontributory actually obligate your policy to do, why waivers of subrogation appear, how certificate delivery works, which demands are boilerplate, and which are genuinely negotiable.
- Law Firm Insurance: The 2026 Requirements Guide
A law firm needs to keep its malpractice coverage connected to prior work as partners join, leave, retire, or dissolve the firm. This guide explains that continuity, along with client, lease, and state requirements and the documents used to prove coverage. For liability exposures and claims, see pleasedontsue.us.
- Managed Service Provider Insurance: The 2026 Requirements Guide
A managed service provider’s client contract usually asks for both technology errors-and-omissions coverage (technology E&O) and cyber coverage. This guide explains why the two are requested together, what a certificate proves, and what to verify before you send one. For liability exposures and claims, see pleasedontsue.us.
- Restaurant and hospitality insurance: the 2026 operations playbook
Restaurants and hospitality businesses need to separate the policy package from the operational gaps around it. This playbook maps the BOP foundation, workers’ compensation and liquor-law variations, property and food-inventory documentation, and the exact records to pull before a loss or a certificate request turns into a coverage problem.
- Technology Company Insurance: The 2026 Requirements Guide
A technology company’s insurance requirements usually come from a customer contract, office lease, hiring rules, or investor checklist. This guide explains what those documents can request, what a certificate proves, and how to check the policy behind it. For liability exposures and claims, see pleasedontsue.us.
- Venture-Backed Startup Insurance: The 2026 Requirements Guide
A startup’s insurance priorities change at clear moments: the first hire, enterprise contract, lease, or outside board member. This guide explains what each milestone can require, what proof to provide, and how to read the documents before signing. For liability exposures and claims, see pleasedontsue.us.
Public record case files
- Worker classification in Dynamex Operations West v. Superior Court
Calling a worker an independent contractor did not settle the question in this California wage case. The court used California’s ABC test, a three-part worker-classification rule, to decide whether drivers were covered by the wage order. That rule does not automatically answer every workers’ compensation or insurance question, which depends on the applicable law and facts.
Questions
- Do I need workers comp insurance if I have no employees? No, sole proprietors without employees are exempt in states like California and New York, but the exemption is narrower than it sounds. Officer and LLC rules are entity-specific, Texas barely mandates coverage at all, and two things override exemptions in practice: client and GC contracts demanding coverage anyway, and workers misclassified as 1099 contractors.
- Do restaurants need workers' comp for seasonal staff? Yes, seasonal status doesn't exempt restaurant staff from workers' comp, and what matters is your state's threshold and how it counts heads. Florida requires coverage for non-construction employers at four or more employees with no seasonal carve-out outside agriculture, and New York requires coverage from virtually all employers. Premiums follow payroll, so a short season costs proportionally less.
- Does general liability cover employee injuries? No, general liability policies exclude injuries to your own employees, and that exposure belongs to workers' compensation, which pays medical costs and lost wages regardless of fault. In exchange, the exclusive remedy doctrine bars most employee lawsuits against you. The edge cases have their own instruments: employer's liability coverage, and stop gap coverage in the four monopolistic states.