Cheap Workers’ Comp Insurance

These five insurers offer the lowest worker's comp rates most often across our dataset:

1. ERGO NEXT: ERGO NEXT has the most affordable workers' comp insurance overall at rates that are 24% below average nationally at $86/mo per employee. They are often cheapest for hands-on service businesses, retail operations and food establishments (cleaning services, beauty salons, retail shops, restaurants).
2. The Hartford: As the second cheapest workers' comp insurer, The Hartford boasted the largest possible savings at the general industry level up to 41%. The company is most affordable for office-based professional services, technology companies and healthcare practices (financial services, consulting, tech startups, medical offices).
3. Thimble: While not an overall category winner in our study, Thimble performs well for pricing for workers' comp, usually being the cheapest for construction contractors, installation services and outdoor workers (welding, carpentry, fence installation, tree surgeons).
4. biBERK: biBERK is typically cheapest workers' compensation provider for fitness venues, recreation businesses and specialty food operations (CrossFit gyms, amusement parks, coffee shops, butcher shops).
5. Nationwide: Nationwide is the workers' comp cost leader for agriculture, being the cheapest for farming operations and is affordable for select types of light manufacturing and community organizations (dairy farms, bakery manufacturing, community centers, homeless shelters).

>> [Click on Each Provider to Learn More]

The cheapest workers’ compensation insurance option for your business depends on what you do, where you operate and the number of employees you have (if any). Use these five companies as your workers' comp insurance cost starting point for any comparisons.

At the general industry level, ERGO NEXT remains the dominant cheapest workers' comp insurer, proportionally winning the most business areas (17/25). The Hartford is the company's only price competitor at this level particularly winning for affordability for more office environment-based industries and those in the healthcare sector.

If you want more industry-specific pricing, we've built guides for the cheapest workers' comp insurance based on what your business does.

When isolating rates at the location level, The Hartford is the most affordable workers' compensation insurance company for most states, winning for pricing in 31 out of 51 or 61% states and territories. The insurer is most cost effective particularly in the northeast, southwest, west and midwestern regions of the United States. ERGO NEXT comes in behind as their only major competitor for low rates, winning more states in the deep south, far north and central regions of the country.

For state-specific rates, we've built guides on the cheapest workers' comp insurance based on where your business operates for you to dig deeper into your most affordable insurer.

If you need to lower your workers' comp costs, these strategies can help you find better rates without leaving your business exposed to workplace injury risks:

There isn't one provider that's cheapest for every business because your most affordable option depends on your industry, employee count and location. The lowest-cost policy works when it covers state-required benefits, matches your actual payroll and job classifications, and includes endorsements contracts require.

Use our page to identify providers that price lowest for businesses like yours, then compare quotes with identical terms to find the best rate that still meets your legal obligations.

If You Want To Confirm Your Cheapest Option: Get Matched To Your Cheapest Provider

To confirm which provider offers the lowest cost for your business, compare quotes with identical payroll estimates, employee classifications and policy limits. Getting matched to providers based on your industry and location helps narrow down which insurers price most competitively for your profile.

If you're still weighing options, the industry guides and state breakdowns on this page show how pricing patterns shift based on what you do and where you operate. These resources can help you understand the tradeoffs and feel confident in your choice.

To identify the cheapest workers' comp insurers, we analyzed real pricing data from 10 major providers and modeled a large set of standardized pricing estimates across common U.S. small business profiles.

Dataset scope and assumptions

• Providers analyzed: 10 major insurance providers
• Industries covered: 408 industries (each assigned a representative workers' comp class code based on the most common job classifications)
• Geography: all U.S. states and territories (including Washington, D.C.)
• Employee count bands: 0, 1–4, 5–9, 10–19 and 20–49 employees (95% of market)
• Policy baseline: standard state-required workers' compensation coverage
• Pricing estimates modeled: just over 1 million total estimates

We also incorporated modeled average payrolls across business profiles to improve pricing accuracy, since workers' comp premiums are calculated based on payroll and classification codes.

How we determined which provider was “cheapest”

We used this dataset to determine which insurers were most often the lowest-cost option across different business profiles. Our “cheapest” rankings include both:

• General Recommendation: Provider rankings based on average estimated per-employee pricing for a standardized one to four employee business profile across all industries and states in our dataset.
• Factor Combination Recommendations: Provider rankings based on which insurer was most often cheapest within specific business factor combinations. For example:
  • Industry × State pricing was compared using a standardized 1–4 employee profile
  • Employee count affordability was derived by comparing aggregated per-employee pricing trends across industries and states

Important note: These results represent standardized pricing estimates, not personalized quotes. Actual pricing can vary based on your specific employee classifications, actual payroll, claims history and the specific limits, deductibles and endorsements you choose. For the most accurate cheapest-provider answer, we recommend comparing quotes apples-to-apples using the same coverage limits.

• Back to cheapest companies
• Get matched
• Next Steps