Workers' comp in the contractor's name.

In most states an independent contractor with no employees isn't required to carry workers' comp for themselves, and many can file an exemption. Your exposure is separate from theirs: when your workers' comp auditor reviews the year, payments to contractors who can't produce their own coverage are commonly reclassified as your payroll and rated as premium. In practice the requirement comes from your carrier and your clients rather than from the contractor's state obligation.

No. A workers' comp policy covers the employees of the business that buys it. An independent contractor isn't your employee, so your policy isn't written to respond when they're hurt. If it does get pulled in, that usually means someone has argued the contractor should have been your employee all along. For coverage that responds, the policy has to be issued in the contractor's own name. We place that coverage per engagement.

Potentially, yes. Having no employees removes your obligation to carry coverage for employees, but it doesn't remove contractor payments from a premium audit. Carriers routinely pick up uninsured 1099 labor as payroll regardless of your headcount. A certificate showing active coverage in each contractor's name keeps those payments out of the ledger.

A waiver or exemption certificate records that a contractor has opted out of covering themselves, but it doesn't create coverage. If that contractor is injured on your engagement, there's no policy to respond. Auditor treatment also varies: whether an exemption is accepted in place of a certificate depends on the state and the carrier. A COI showing active coverage in the contractor's name avoids that ambiguity.

We don't position it that way. Carrying insurance isn't what makes someone an independent contractor, and the tests differ by state. New Jersey's rules, operative October 1, 2026, specifically exclude contractor insurance that a hiring party requires or encourages from counting as evidence under Prong C. Coverage is worth placing for reasons that don't depend on a classification test: an injured contractor with no policy to respond, and a premium audit that treats uninsured labor as yours.

46 states plus the District of Columbia. North Dakota, Ohio, Washington, and Wyoming are monopolistic states, where workers' comp is written only through the state fund, so no private carrier can place it, ours included. Coverage is available for non-construction contractors.