Workers' Compensation
Statutory coverage for employee injuries, state by state.
Questions
- Do I need workers comp insurance if I have no employees?
Usually not by statute — 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 — 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; 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 — 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.