Yes. In New York a true office employee is rated under the clerical category, which costs a small fraction of what a carpenter, roofer, or plumber costs. The catch is that New York's rules are strict: the person must work in an area separated by walls, partitions, or counters, and must not do any field work, or their entire salary is charged at the field rate. Who this is for: New York contractors with a bookkeeper, office manager, estimator, or project manager who is being charged at the same rate as the crew.
The short version
- New York rates office staff under a clerical category that costs a small fraction of any field trade.
- The employee must work in a physically separate office area and never be exposed to the field work. One regular site visit moves the whole salary to the field rate.
- Office and officer categories cannot be split. Field trades can be split only with actual hours in your original payroll records.
- Owners who are corporate officers and true project managers have their own lower-cost categories too.
- Weekly payroll records by employee, category, hours, and job are what make any of this stick at audit.
What counts as office staff in New York?
Every employee is rated under a class code, the job category your payroll is rated under. New York's clerical category is Code 8810. Clerical work means records, correspondence, computer work, drafting, and phone work including phone sales. That list comes from the New York Compensation Insurance Rating Board, which publishes the categories. Two conditions come with it. The employee must work in an area separated by floors, walls, partitions, counters, or other barriers. And the employee must not be regularly exposed to the hazards of the business. A desk in the corner of the shop does not qualify. A partitioned office next to the shop does.
Can one person be part office and part field?
Not for the clerical category. New York's rule is blunt: if a clerical employee also does non-clerical work, the entire payroll goes to the highest-rated category that person is exposed to. There is no 80/20 split. The same is true for the executive officer and outside sales categories.
Field workers are different. In New York construction, one employee's payroll may be split between two field categories, but only if your original payroll records show the actual hours in each. An estimated or percentage split is not allowed. Without the records, everything goes to the highest-rated category.
Where do owners, project managers, and estimators go?
| Role | New York category | Conditions |
|---|---|---|
| Bookkeeper, office manager, dispatcher | Clerical (Code 8810) | Separate office area, no field work, no regular exposure to the shop or jobsite. |
| Owner who is a corporate officer | Executive officer (Code 8809) | Officer does not regularly work as a foreman, worker, or outside salesperson. Sole proprietors and LLC members are excluded by default instead. |
| Project manager or construction executive | Construction executive (Code 5606) | Supervises through superintendents or foremen, splits time between office and site checks. Not for anyone directly running the crew. |
| Superintendent or foreman | The trade they supervise | Between jobs, wages still go to the trade, not clerical, unless the work is entirely office work or the person is fully idle. |
| Estimator | Depends on the insurer's audit | An estimator who never supervises or performs field work is usually argued for an office or sales category, subject to the carrier's review of the actual duties. |
The general rules are in should workers comp cost less for office staff than field employees, and the bookkeeper question in can my bookkeeper qualify for a clerical classification.
What records make the lower rate stick at audit?
The premium audit is the insurer's year-end check of your real payroll. A New York auditor wants weekly payroll records for each employee showing wages, regular and overtime hours, the job category, whether the work was residential or commercial, and the county, plus a short job description for each office employee. Keep the description true: if your office manager drives materials to jobs, either stop that or accept the field rate.
How much difference does it make?
Enough that it is usually the biggest single line on a small contractor's audit. Clerical is one of the cheapest categories in the whole New York manual. A field trade like roofing is one of the most expensive. Move one person from one to the other and the bill changes more than any discount you can negotiate. How big the gap is depends on your trade, the insurer's own multiplier, and your claims. The rating board's published base prices are only the starting point.
For the rest of the levers, see how to reduce workers comp costs in New York and what workers comp costs in New York.
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: A plumbing contractor in Hempstead, on Long Island, has nine plumbers and an office manager paid $62,000 a year. She handles billing, scheduling, and permits from a desk in the corner of the shop, and drops off parts at jobs a couple of times a week.
What went wrong: At audit, the insurer moved her entire salary to the plumbing category. Two reasons: no physical separation from the shop, and regular trips to jobsites.
What it cost: Her whole salary moved from the cheapest category on the policy to a field trade rate, for an employee who never touches a pipe. She had been doing parts runs for three years, so the same charge sat in three audits.
The fix: The fix cost $1,800: a partition wall and a door between her desk and the shop, and a rule that apprentices pick up parts. The next audit kept her at clerical, and the broker asked the insurer to review the prior year with the new job description.
Frequently asked questions
Q: Should office staff cost less to insure than field employees in New York?
Yes. A true office employee is rated under New York's clerical category, which costs a small fraction of any field trade. The employee must work in a separate office area and never do field work, or the entire salary is charged at the field rate.
Q: Can my office manager visit jobsites and still be rated as clerical in New York?
Not if it is regular. New York assigns the entire payroll of a clerical employee who also does non-clerical work to the highest-rated category they are exposed to. Regular site visits or parts runs usually end the clerical rate.
Q: Can I split someone between office and field in New York?
Not for office staff. The clerical, executive officer, and outside sales categories cannot be split at all. Payroll for field trades can be divided between two field categories only if your original records show the actual hours in each. A manager who supervises through foremen has his own construction executive category, but anyone directly running a crew is rated as the trade.
Q: My office manager also answers the phone for a second business I own. Does that break the clerical rate?
It can. The category follows the duties the insurer sees at audit, and work for another business belongs on that business's payroll. Keep the two payrolls separate and give the auditor a job description for each.
Q: What records does a New York auditor want for office staff?
Weekly payroll by employee with wages, regular and overtime hours, and the job category, plus a job description. For field employees, add whether the work was residential or commercial and the county it was in.
Q: Can I get money back if my office staff were rated wrong in New York?
Often, for the current policy year and sometimes the prior one. Your broker asks the insurer for a review with job descriptions and records. Results depend on the insurer and how well the records back the change.
How Morrow helps
Morrow is a licensed independent commercial insurance brokerage that works with contractors and trades every day. Checking whether a New York contractor's office staff, owners, and managers are in the right job categories, and fixing them with the insurer, is a routine part of our renewal review.
- 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.