Work comp through a professional employer organisation is placed on the provider's programme and charged back to you by job classification. Three things decide whether that is a good deal, and all three are settled before signature or not at all.
Classification
Premium is a rate per hundred dollars of payroll for each job classification, and the provider decides which classification applies to each of your roles. For office work the decision is trivial; for anything involving tools, vehicles or heights it is the largest single number in your bill. Get every code in writing and check it against how the work is actually done rather than the job title.
Programme access
For an employer with a poor claims history or hard-to-place classifications, the alternative to a provider's programme is often the assigned-risk market, which is expensive. Access alone can justify the whole arrangement in that case. For a clean office employer the access is worth much less and should not be priced as though it were the main benefit.
Experience, and what you take with you
Ask how your own loss experience is treated while you are in the arrangement and what you can obtain when you leave. An employer who cannot produce a loss history to a new insurer is negotiating from nothing, and this is the question that most often goes unasked until it is needed.
Questions people ask about peo work comp
How is work comp priced through a PEO?
As a rate per hundred dollars of payroll for each job classification, charged back to you as part of the invoice. The classification codes applied to your roles drive the number.
Is PEO work comp cheaper?
For employers with difficult classifications or a poor claims history it frequently is, because the alternative is the assigned-risk market. For a clean office employer the advantage is much smaller.
What happens to my loss history?
Ask directly, both for the period inside the arrangement and for what you can take out. An employer who cannot show a loss history to a new insurer has no basis to negotiate.