Yes. If your bookkeeper or dispatcher is rated at your field rate, you are overpaying, and a classification review fixes it. In Georgia, an employee who does only office work in a space separated from the field hazards is rated in the clerical category, a small fraction of any trade rate. Who this is for: Georgia contractors with a front office who suspect their workers comp bill treats everyone like a field worker.
The short version
- Workers comp is priced per $100 of payroll by job category. The office category is often ten to thirty times cheaper than a field trade.
- To qualify, the person must work in a space separated by a wall, floor, partition, or counter, and do only office work.
- Anyone who supervises field crews, visits sites to direct work, or does physical labor is not clerical, even part of the time.
- Payroll can never be split between the clerical category and a field category. It is all or nothing.
- A project manager or a site-visiting estimator has a category of their own, priced well below a field trade rate.
Why does office payroll cost so much less in Georgia?
Workers comp is priced on payroll by class code, the job category your payroll is rated under. Each category carries a rate per $100. Georgia uses the categories set by NCCI, the rating bureau, and each insurer prices on top. No Georgia class rate table is published here. The ranges below are national illustrative figures and show how wide the gap is.
| Job category | Illustrative national rate per $100 of payroll | Yearly cost on $50,000 of payroll |
|---|---|---|
| Clerical office | About $0.20 to $0.40 | About $100 to $200 |
| Electrical | About $3.00 to $4.00 | About $1,500 to $2,000 |
| Plumbing or heating and cooling | About $4.00 to $5.50 | About $2,000 to $2,750 |
| Carpentry or framing | About $8.00 to $11.00 | About $4,000 to $5,500 |
Your Georgia rate is your insurer's own pricing applied to NCCI's loss cost for your class code, moved again by your claims multiplier. The gap between office and field is always this wide, which is why one misplaced office employee can cost thousands a year. See what workers comp costs in Georgia.
Who qualifies as office staff under the rules Georgia uses?
Office work is carved out of your trade rate because it exists in every kind of business, not just construction. The rules for the carve-out are strict, and the auditor will check them.
| Usually qualifies as clerical | Does not qualify |
|---|---|
| Bookkeeping, payroll, and filing | Outside sales or visiting customers |
| Answering phones, scheduling, dispatch by phone | Direct supervision of field employees |
| Data entry, estimating done entirely at a desk | Any physical labor, demonstration, or instruction |
| Work in an office separated from the shop or yard by a wall, floor, partition, or counter | A desk inside the shop or warehouse with no barrier |
The separation rule matters more than people expect. A desk in the corner of the shop, where the person walks past the saws and forklifts, does not qualify. A front office with a door does.
Can a project manager or estimator count as office staff in Georgia?
Usually not. A person who directs construction work is not clerical, even from a desk. NCCI has a separate category for construction executives and project managers, and it applies only where there is a layer of supervision, such as a superintendent or foreman, between that person and the crews. It is priced above clerical but far below a trade rate. An estimator or salesperson who visits job sites loses the clerical code, but that does not automatically mean your trade rate: the manual has its own nonconstruction code for construction job site salespeople and estimators, and moves the payroll into a trade class only if they also do construction work or supervise crews there. See the national rules.
Can I split someone's time between the office and the field?
Not into clerical. Payroll can be divided between two field categories if you keep records of actual hours in each, and estimates are not allowed. But the clerical category is excluded from that rule. A field employee who does paperwork on Fridays is rated at the field rate for the whole week. That is the rule most Georgia contractors get wrong at audit.
How do I get my Georgia office staff rated correctly?
- Write down each office employee's duties and where they sit. One paragraph each is enough.
- Ask your broker for a classification review. A licensed Georgia broker sends the duties to the insurer and asks for the clerical category to be added.
- Keep payroll by category all year. The insurer's year-end payroll check, called a premium audit, only honors the split if your records show it.
- Ask about the last audit. Ask your broker to have the insurer review it with the corrected duties. Whether a closed audit gets reopened depends on the insurer and on whether your records and office layout support the correction, so treat any refund as a possibility, not something you are owed.
For the rest of the savings list, see how to reduce workers comp costs in Georgia.
What this looks like in real life
Illustrative example. It is typical of what we see and is not a promise of how any specific situation would be handled.
The setup: An electrical contractor in Macon has eleven employees. Two of them, an office manager and a bookkeeper, work in a front office with a door, separated from the shop. Their combined payroll is $95,000, and both have been rated at the electrical field rate.
What went wrong: Nobody ever told the insurer they existed as office staff. The application listed one category, electrical, and every audit since has followed it.
What it cost: Illustrative national ranges: at an electrical rate near $3.80 per $100, the two cost about $3,600 a year. At a clerical rate near $0.30, they cost about $285. The classification review saves about $3,300 a year going forward. The broker also asks the insurer to review the prior audit with the corrected duties, which may or may not be reopened.
The fix: Two employees, one paragraph each, and one email from a licensed Georgia broker changed the bill by thousands. Check where your office staff sit on the policy before every renewal.
Frequently asked questions
Q: Should office staff cost less to insure than field employees in Georgia?
Yes. True office staff are rated in the clerical category, which is priced at a small fraction of any field trade rate. If yours are rated at the field rate, ask your insurer for a classification review.
Q: What counts as office work for workers comp in Georgia?
Bookkeeping, records, phones, data entry, and similar desk work, done in a space separated from the shop or field by a wall, floor, partition, or counter. No supervision of field crews, no site visits to direct work, no physical labor.
Q: Can my bookkeeper be rated as clerical if her desk is in the shop?
Usually not. The rule requires a physical barrier between her workstation and the shop hazards. A partition or counter can be enough. An open desk beside the equipment is not.
Q: Can my project manager be rated as clerical in Georgia?
Usually not. Someone who directs construction work is not clerical, even from a desk, though there is a separate category for project managers who supervise through a foreman that is priced well below the trade rate.
Q: Where does my estimator's pay go if he visits job sites?
He loses the office category, but that does not automatically put him at your trade rate. The manual has its own category for construction job site estimators and salespeople. The payroll moves to a trade class only if he also does construction work there.
Q: Can I get money back if my office staff were rated wrong last year in Georgia?
Possibly. Ask your broker to request that the insurer review the last audit with the corrected duties. Whether a closed audit gets reopened depends on the insurer and on whether your records and office layout back the correction.
How Morrow helps
Morrow is a licensed independent commercial insurance brokerage that works with contractors and trades every day. Finding Georgia office staff rated at a field rate and getting the classification corrected with the insurer is one of the most common things we do.
- Free contract review. Send us the contract or bid documents and we mark up the insurance section in plain English, whether or not you buy anything from us.
- Free, instant certificates. Clients issue their own certificates of insurance online in about a minute, any hour, any day, at no charge.
- Markets you cannot reach online. One application, shopped across many insurance companies for general liability, workers comp, auto, umbrella, and pollution coverage.
One more thing. This article is general information and is not legal advice or a statement of coverage. Your contract and your policy wording control in every case. Requirements vary by customer, by state, and by insurance company, so have a licensed advisor review your own contract and your own policy before relying on any of it.
Last updated: Reviewed by the Morrow commercial lines team. Last updated September 2026.