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Required in Pennsylvania from your first employee, with per-day criminal penalties for going without. This page is the plain version of the rules.
Not optional
Yes, from the first employee, with no minimum headcount. Pennsylvania requires coverage for full-time, part-time, seasonal, and temporary workers alike, including employed family members. For Delaware County employers, the practical question is never whether to carry it, only where to place it well.
The trade at the heart of the system is old and fair: employees give up the right to sue you for workplace injuries, and in exchange the policy pays their medical treatment and lost wages regardless of fault. Carry the coverage and that immunity is yours. Go without it and you face the worst of both worlds, unlimited lawsuit exposure and criminal liability at the same time.
The exemptions are narrow: federal and railroad workers covered by their own systems, genuinely casual labour outside your regular business, agricultural workers earning under $1,200 per person per year, and sole proprietors or partners with no employees, who are not required to cover themselves.
Source: PA Department of Labor and Industry, LIBC-200 employer information. Verified August 2026.
The part worth reading twice
Failing to insure is a criminal offence in Pennsylvania, counted per day. A misdemeanor conviction carries a $2,500 fine and up to one year in prison for each day of violation. When the failure is intentional, it becomes a felony carrying a $15,000 fine and up to seven years for each day.
The civil side is just as sharp. An uninsured employer loses the lawsuit immunity that workers comp provides, meaning an injured employee can sue in tort and recover beyond what the statute would have paid. The employer, and the individuals responsible for the decision, carry that exposure personally.
Every week of an uninsured payroll is a bet that nobody gets hurt and nobody reports you. Against a premium that scales with payroll, it is the worst-priced bet in small business.
Source: PA Department of Labor and Industry, LIBC-200. Verified August 2026.
Cost
Premium is a formula, not a flat rate: payroll divided by 100, times the rate for each job classification, times your experience modifier. Published Pennsylvania class rates run from pennies per $100 of payroll for clerical staff to several dollars for the building trades.
Named references for scale: Kickstand Insurance lists Pennsylvania examples of $0.09 per $100 for clerical office employees against $3.17 for HVAC service work. WorkersCompensationShop places typical Pennsylvania averages historically between $1.50 and $1.99 per $100. GetPAWorkersComp frames the overall spread as roughly $0.50 to $15 per $100 depending on industry. Classification accuracy is where money is won or lost, because misclassified payroll is either an audit bill or an overpayment.
Coverage is available from licensed private carriers or the State Workers’ Insurance Fund, and comparing both is exactly the kind of work an independent agency exists for.
Cost sources: Kickstand Insurance, WorkersCompensationShop, GetPAWorkersComp. Retrieved August 2026. Statutory facts from PA L&I.
What is covered
Two beneficiaries: the injured employee, and the employer the system shields.
All reasonable and necessary treatment for a work injury or occupational disease, from the first visit onward.
A portion of lost wages while the employee cannot work, calculated under the statute’s formulas.
The lawsuit protection that comes with compliance: covered injuries proceed through the comp system, not the courtroom.
Support for dependents after a fatal workplace injury, the coverage everyone hopes stays theoretical.
The policy’s Part Two, defending the narrow lawsuits that fall outside the comp bargain.
Not a coverage, but part of the service: getting class codes and payroll right so the premium matches reality.
Boundaries
The system is broad for employees and narrow for everything else.
Why independent
Two employers with identical payrolls can pay very different comp premiums, because classification judgment calls, carrier loss-cost multipliers, and experience-mod management all move the formula’s inputs. Carriers apply different multipliers to the same class codes, which is precisely the kind of spread a one-carrier agent cannot show you.
We quote comp across markets including the State Workers’ Insurance Fund, sit with you on classifications before the audit rather than after, and pair the policy with the rest of the stack: general liability insurance in Delaware County covering the public while comp covers the crew, with employment practices liability insurance in Pennsylvania guarding the employer relationship itself. It starts, as always, from the business insurance in Drexel Hill, PA map.
Questions
One payroll conversation, quotes from private carriers and the State Fund, and the exposure clock stops.
Get a QuoteCall (610) 259-6700