Why do small claims hurt so much?

Because the formula is built to measure how OFTEN something goes wrong rather than how badly, on the reasoning that frequency reflects your safety culture while a single catastrophic loss can be bad luck. Primary loss amounts — the first tranche of each claim — count in full, while amounts above that are heavily discounted. The practical result surprises people: five $3,000 claims can damage your mod more than one $80,000 claim, so the strain injuries nobody thinks about are the ones costing you money.

Can I get the mod recalculated if the data is wrong?

Yes, and it is worth checking every year because errors are common. The usual ones are open reserves set far above what the claim will actually settle for, claims that closed for less than reserved but were never updated, subrogation recoveries not credited, and employees in the wrong class code. Request your worksheet and your loss runs, reconcile them, and challenge what does not match. Corrections can be applied retroactively, which sometimes produces a refund as well as a lower renewal.

Our mod is above 1.00 and contractors are refusing us work. What now?

That is common — many general contractors set a hard cut-off, often at 1.00 or 1.25, and it can shut you out of bidding regardless of price. The route back is unglamorous: close open claims properly, fix the reserve errors, run a documented return-to-work program, and wait for the bad year to roll out of the window. In the meantime, a PEO placement can keep you insured while the standalone history recovers, though it will not itself satisfy a contractor who is asking for your mod.

Do we even have a mod?

Only above a premium threshold, which varies by state. Below it you are not experience rated at all and your premium is simply the manual rate applied to your payroll — which means your claims do not follow you the same way, and also that you get no credit for a clean record. Businesses growing across that threshold for the first time are often surprised to acquire a mod based on years they were not thinking about it.

What is an experience modification rate, and how do I lower mine?

It is a multiplier applied to your workers compensation premium that compares your actual losses to the losses expected for a business of your size in your class codes. A mod of 1.00 is average; below that you pay less than expected, above it you pay more. Two things about it drive most of the money: FREQUENCY hurts more than severity, because the formula deliberately weights the number of claims above the size of any one of them — and a bad year affects three years of premium, because the calculation uses a rolling three-year window.

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The detail

The experience rating formula uses a rolling window of past policy periods, excluding the most recent, so a single bad year affects premium across several subsequent years.
National Council on Compensation Insurance
Experience rating weights claim FREQUENCY more heavily than claim severity — primary loss amounts count in full while excess amounts are discounted — so several small claims can produce a worse mod than one large one.
National Council on Compensation Insurance

What this means for you

Report claims immediately. Delay increases cost, and cost drives the mod — the difference between a same-day report and a two-week one is measurable.
A return-to-work program is a pricing decision, not just a welfare one. Getting someone onto light duty converts a lost-time claim into a medical-only one, which is weighted far more kindly.
Audit your loss runs and your class codes annually. Reserves left open at inflated figures, closed claims not reflected, and wrong class codes are all common and all fixable.
Three years, not one. A bad year is priced into the next three, which is why the cheap fixes are worth doing before the year that gets rated.
Ask for the worksheet, not just the number. The mod is calculated from data you can check, and errors in it are routine.

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We do the filings, and we place the accounts other brokers decline — lapsed authority, claims history, new ventures. Tell us the situation and a licensed human replies the same business day.