What You Need to Know to Run
Your San Francisco Landscaping Business
Workers Compensation insurance for landscaping contractors here in San Francisco CA can be
very expensive. Workers Compensation rates for trade contractors are Contact For Information per $1,000 of payroll.
Depending on the legal status of your business, you will have certain options for workers
compensation coverage. For instance, if you business is set up in your own name with
a "doing business as" such as James Dolly doing business as Dolly's Landscaping
Contracting - then you are an individual. As an individual, you can either "opt in" or "opt out"
meaning that you can either have coverage and pay based on your payroll or "opt out" in which case
you would pay a minimum premium based on the state mandated payroll. This policy is generally
much cheaper, for the obvious reason that, if you are injured in the course of your employment, you
would not have coverage.
Many insurance companies who write coverage on an individual will want you to document that you have
health insurance. The concern being that, without health insurance, not only will they end up paying
for work related injuries but also injuries that do not occur at work.
If your business is a corporation, you, as a corporate officer, may opt out of coverage. In
California there are both minimum and maximums for corporate officers. Presently, for a corporate
officer the minimum payroll is $34,400 and the maximum is $94,900. If you are a
corporation the minimum premium is Contact For Information.
There are many other areas which need to be clarified to make sure you are paying the correct premium.
First, if you have salespeople or clerical employees, this payroll should be separated out as the rate
is significantly cheaper than the rate for landscaping contractor. Also, if you have
executive supervisors, that should be noted as this rate is again far cheaper than the rate for
a landscaping contractor.
Insider Tips and Tricks To Save
San Francisco California Landscaping Contractors - Year After Year
The workers compensation policy is the poor "red-headed step child" of the insurance world. Far
too many insurance agents believe that "Workers Comp is Workers Comp" and, in all candor, this
attitude could well cost you thousands upon thousands of dollars for years.
The reason, most contractors workers compensation policies are written with a Experience
Modification factor. In simplest terms, this factor has the impact of either lowering or raising
your bottom line price. The problem is, most agents have no idea how to help you control your
experience modification or how to determine if it is even correct. Studies show that nearly half
the experience modification factors for landscaping contractors are wrong. You may
be paying more than you have to simply because your agent is not an expert in San Francisco CA
contractor's workers compensation.
What You Need to Know to Run
Your San Francisco Landscaping Business
As a San Francisco CA landscaping contractor, once you have a workers compensation insurance policy, without
question, your policy will be audited to "true up" against what you estimated on your application
(the only instance that you will not be audited on is if you are incorporating your payroll and
workers compensation together). Then you will either get a refund or have to pay as your payroll was
higher than estimated.
The problem is all the rules favor the insurance company. If handled incorrectly, this results
in, not only additional premium from last year, but that premium will be added to this year as well.
The result, you may well end up with some very rude suprises.
If you use subs, or have workers across different classifications this can be very problematic - and very costly.
As an agency, we have created a "Audit Proof Package" for San Francisco CA landscaping contractors
to make your workers compensation audit just another day and not something to fear.
The workers compensation audit has put far too many CA landscaping contractors out of
business. It simply doesn't have to be. The difference is working with a specialist San Francisco CA
contractor insurance agent who is able to navigate the treacherous workers compensation arena.
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