Roofing Workers' Comp and General Liability: What It Costs and How Audits Work

A New York roofing owner who subs out all of the roofing posted a workers’ comp quote on r/Roofing in March 2024: $105,000 a year on $350,000 of projected salaries. A month later an Illinois owner who subs nearly everything reported a quote over $100,000 on $350,000 of office and sales payroll. A quote near 30 percent of payroll for people who don’t install roofs suggests they were quoted in a roofing class, and that’s the first thing I’d ask a broker about.

Comp is priced per $100 of payroll by the class of work each person does. Pennsylvania publishes the part of that price that pays claims, and for 2026 it puts $100 of roofing payroll at $7.547, against 5 cents for office payroll, before each insurer adds its own charge for expenses.

The quote rests on the payroll you project, and after the policy year the carrier audits what you paid. In Pennsylvania, pay your records can’t split by class goes to the highest-rated class on the job, and in several states a sub without its own comp policy can be counted as your employee. Texas lets most private employers skip comp. General liability is a separate policy, and owners report paying anywhere from $1,200 a year to over $100,000.

I run Zentora, a marketing company for roofers, and we haven’t measured anything about insurance. This guide rests on public rules and data from a handful of US states, plus owners’ posts I can’t verify, so check anything you act on with a broker who writes roofers where you work.

Roofers die at work at about 15 times the average rate

In 2024, 104 roofers died on the job in the US, a rate of 48.7 for every 100,000 full-time workers against 3.3 for all workers. On the Bureau of Labor Statistics chart of selected jobs, only two had higher death rates: logging, and fishing and hunting.

Pennsylvania publishes its loss costs, the dollars per $100 of payroll that go to paying claims. Each insurer multiplies them by its own filed factor for expenses, so your rate will be higher than the table. The 2026 figures:

By my math, $350,000 of roofing payroll comes to about $26,400 before the insurer’s multiplier, and the same payroll as office work comes to $175. Pennsylvania’s roofing class also takes in the ground crew passing materials up and picking up debris.

Washington’s state fund charges $5.79 for every hour of roof work in 2026, 7.3 times its all-class rate and about $11,120 a year per full-time roofer before the experience factor, with part of it deducted from the worker’s pay.

States that use codes from the National Council on Compensation Insurance (NCCI) put roofing in class 5551, “Roofing - All Kinds and Drivers,” so whoever drives the truck goes in it too. NCCI keeps its loss costs behind a login, so for a Texas or Florida figure you’ll need a broker who writes roofers.

Texas lets most roofers skip comp, at the cost of three defenses in court

Texas law says a private employer “may elect” to carry workers’ comp, and the Texas Department of Insurance (TDI) says it’s “not required in most cases.” No other state goes that far. Florida requires comp in construction from the first employee. California requires a comp certificate on file for a C-39 roofing license even when the company has no employees, and removes the roofing classification from a license that lacks one.

Going without makes you a non-subscriber. You file DWC Form-005 every year between February 1 and April 30, plus within 30 days of your first hire or 10 days of dropping coverage. You also give new hires written notice and post Notice 5, and with five or more employees you report lost-time injuries every month on DWC Form-007.

If an injured employee sues a non-subscriber, the statute takes away three defenses: the worker’s own negligence, a risk the worker accepted, and a co-worker’s negligence. A waiver signed before an injury is void. Carrying comp limits what an employee can sue you for, except when gross negligence causes a death. Texas public projects require the contractor to certify in writing that every employee is covered, and private GCs and builders set their own terms by contract.

In Pennsylvania, pay you can’t split by class goes to the highest-rated class

Pennsylvania gives each kind of construction work its own class only if you keep separate payroll records for it, and the manual adds, “Estimated or percentage allocation of payroll is not permitted.” Work without separate records goes to the highest-rated class on that job, and a worker who moves between duties is rated entirely in the highest class covering any part of the work. NCCI’s manual has a comparable rule, though its text sits behind a login.

An owner wrote in a YouTube comment in 2023 that in their first audit dispute “they tried to reclassify ALL of our labor as a code with 3x premium.” Another contractor reported comp at 42 percent of payroll for roofing and about 1.5 percent for outside sales reps, and said timesheets tracking hours by type of work let them show that split at the annual audit.

In Pennsylvania an office worker with any other regular duty is rated in the company’s main class for all of their pay. Whether a rep who climbs roofs to inspect them stays in outside sales is for the auditor to decide, so ask your broker how yours will be classed.

Florida’s statute spells out what a comp audit has to review: every payment for labor, to employees and subs alike, plus your subs’ certificates of insurance. Understating payroll or hiding what people do to dodge a class costs ten times the premium difference plus attorney fees. Florida can also assess up to $5,000 per worker misclassified as an independent contractor, using its own test of who counts as an employee. Roofing Contracts and 1099 Rules: What a New Owner Needs in Writing covers what to put in writing with a 1099 crew.

A sub without its own comp policy can be counted as your employee

In Pennsylvania a carrier can’t charge you for a sub who had a standard comp policy covering the whole time they worked for you, so a policy that lapsed mid-job falls short. It also can’t charge for a sub who is a corporate officer and opted out of the law in writing. For any other sub the carrier “may either waive or collect premium,” and the rating bureau doesn’t review that choice. An uninsured sub covered under your policy is classified as if your own employees did the work.

An owner on r/smallbusiness wrote in December 2024, without naming the state: “Some of our sub were ‘underinsured’ meaning that they mark that as no coverage.” The carrier asked for about three times the company’s annual premium.

Texas law points the same way. If you carry comp and hire a sub with no employees, you’re the general contractor in the law’s terms, and “the general contractor shall be treated as the employer of the subcontractor.” A sub falls outside your coverage if it’s an independent contractor that has signed a written agreement taking on the employer’s responsibilities. So a covered Texas roofer who pays one-man crews can expect premium on them, though I don’t know how Texas carriers price it at audit.

Florida requires every contractor to get proof of comp from its subs, and makes the contractor liable for the employees of any sub without coverage. How to Find and Keep Reliable Roofing Sub Crews covers how owners find and vet them.

Your mod counts how often you have claims more than how big they are

Once your premium passes a threshold that varies by state, an experience mod compares your payroll and losses with the average employer in your class, usually over three years of data that leaves out the current policy. NCCI’s plan weighs how often you have claims over how big they are, so several small claims count against you more than one large claim of the same total, and in most states a claim that paid only medical bills counts at 30 percent. The plan doesn’t apply in California, New York, Pennsylvania and three other states, or in the four where a state fund is the only seller of comp.

Owners report carriers turning roofing companies away

In September 2026 a Pennsylvania owner on r/Roofing wrote that biBERK had stopped covering roofing in the state and “no one can place us with a carrier.” A roofer on Reddit wrote in 2024 that carriers refuse new companies and push them to a PEO, a professional employer organization, where comp ran 8 to 9 percent of payroll plus about 10 percent more for the PEO.

An owner weighing a PEO on r/smallbusiness in February 2026 doubted its promise of no annual payroll audit. Before you sign with one, get in writing whether there’s an audit and what happens to your claims record when you leave.

Texas has a backstop: by law Texas Mutual “may not refuse to insure a risk” that pays the premium, though a company that fails its underwriting standards pays more and one that won’t prepay or post security can be turned away. For the other first-year costs, see Starting a Roofing Company: What It Costs and How to Land the First Jobs.

Owners report general liability costs from $1,200 a year to over $100,000

These are numbers owners posted on Reddit, none of them verified, since insurers’ rating manuals for general liability aren’t public. One roofer’s quotes in February 2024 ran from $1,200 to $4,500 a year. A Dallas owner starting out was quoted $10,000 a year by Progressive that April, and a solo roofer’s best quote in February 2025 was $5,500 a year for $1 million of coverage with a $10,000 deductible.

In September 2025 a GC doing $1.5 million to $2.1 million a year, 60 percent roofing and 40 percent siding with every crew subbed, was told its premium would rise 500 percent under new roofing applications. A commenter in the same thread said theirs was over $100,000, with all of the work subbed.

The records you keep before the audit decide much of what it can charge

• Ask your broker which class each person on payroll sits in, starting with sales reps who climb roofs and office staff with other duties.
• Log hours by type of work on every timesheet. Pennsylvania won’t accept an estimated split.
• Collect a comp certificate from every sub before the job starts, and check that the policy covers the whole job. In Texas you can look a company up on TXCOMP, and TDI answers coverage questions within one business day at [email protected].
• Know your appeal deadline. Pennsylvania allows an appeal during the policy period or within 12 months after it ends. Ask your broker what your state allows.

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