Contractor Mod Benchmark: NCCI's Construction Signal
NCCI's June 16 dashboard gives carriers a cleaner construction yardstick. A contractor with $500,000 in manual premium has $50,000 riding on a 0.10 mod gap.
A contractor mod benchmark compares your Experience Modification Rate (EMR) and loss runs with NCCI construction trends, not a generic 1.00 average. NCCI launched its Industry Trend Dashboard on June 16, 2026, and construction frequency fell 4.1% annually from 2015 to 2023p (NCCI, June 2026). A 0.10 swing on $500,000 equals $50,000 before credits.
A contractor mod benchmark is useful only if the comparison is specific enough to make a contractor uncomfortable. A 1.00 mod is not a benchmark. It's a midpoint.
On June 16, NCCI (National Council on Compensation Insurance) published Industry Drill Down - The Next Level, tied to its new Industry Trend Dashboard. NCCI said "carriers can now compare their books of business with overall industry trends" (NCCI, June 16, 2026). Contractors and brokers should hear the same challenge: compare the worksheet in front of you with what construction is doing around it.
The Experience Modification Rate (EMR, also called the mod) is personal. The trend data is not. The value is in the gap between the two.
NCCI maps NAICS code 23 to Construction in the Industry Drill Down series (NCCI, June 16, 2026). The dashboard page says users can review aggregate workers' comp claim frequency, severity, and loss ratios at the countrywide level, state level, or for a selected group of states (NCCI, June 2026). That matters in the Southeast because Alabama, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee all sit inside the NCCI-serviced state set named in the methodology (NCCI, June 16, 2026).
How a contractor mod benchmark reads the construction trend
NCCI's construction drill down says accident-year frequency declined 4.1% annually from 2015 to 2023p, compared with 2.6% for all industries (NCCI Industry Drill Down, June 2026). Good news. Also incomplete.
Frequency is only half the story. NCCI's 2026 State of the Line Guide says construction has the highest lost-time medical claim severity of any industry, and construction medical severity increased 13% in Accident Year 2024 (NCCI State of the Line Guide, May 2026). The same guide estimates all-industry medical lost-time severity rose about 4% in Accident Year 2025 (NCCI State of the Line Guide, May 2026).
Loss ratio ties those signals back to premium. NCCI says the combined impact of frequency and severity on average loss ratio was a 3% decrease in 2025, weaker than the 4.5% long-term average decrease (NCCI State of the Line Guide, May 2026). That is not deterioration. It is less improvement.
That is the benchmark tension. Construction is having fewer lost-time claims, but the claims that do land are heavier. A contractor with three small claims can still look worse than the sector trend. A contractor with one large open medical claim can look clean on frequency and expensive on severity. The industry average won't tell you which account you are.
Why Southeast benchmarks need payroll and wage context
A mod benchmark without payroll context is just trivia. NCCI's 2026 guide says payroll increased about 5% in 2025, with less than 1% from employment and most of the growth coming from wages (NCCI State of the Line Guide, May 2026). Higher wages raise expected losses and premium base at the same time. They don't erase a bad claim.
The labor market is still moving. BLS reported 8.337 million construction jobs in May 2026, plus 330,000 job openings, 360,000 hires, and 262,000 separations in the sector (BLS, May 2026). Those figures don't enter your mod formula directly, but they explain why construction benchmarks need a workforce lens. A contractor adding crews in a tight market may have a different loss pattern than a contractor with a stable, tenured field force.
In our reviews of Southeast contractor worksheets, the weak accounts often don't miss the benchmark everywhere. They miss it in one corner. A class code with payroll growth outruns expected losses. A single claim valuation stays high after the job is over. A lost-time claim sits on the worksheet long after the renewal conversation has moved on.
The $50,000 swing is the point
Start with a contractor carrying $500,000 in manual premium. At a 1.00 mod, the modded premium stays $500,000. At a 1.10 mod, it becomes $550,000. At a 0.90 mod, it becomes $450,000. That 0.10 swing is $50,000 before schedule credits, deductible effects, expense constants, and state assessments (Orson calculation, July 2026).
That is why the benchmark matters. NCCI's approved bureau changes are expected to decrease written premiums by an average of 5.0% from 2025 to 2026, but the most recent state changes ranged from a 15.6% decrease to a 21.6% increase (NCCI State of the Line Guide, May 2026). A favorable filing can hide an expensive mod. A hard filing makes the mod louder.
The contractor's question is not whether construction is better or worse than last year. The question is whether your worksheet is better or worse than the construction trend your carrier already sees.
What an audit would check
An audit checks whether the contractor's own loss runs and experience rating worksheet line up with the benchmark: frequency against trade and payroll size, claim values against current carrier records, claim type, payroll, and class code mix. It does not grade the contractor against 1.00 in a vacuum. The costly pattern is usually a local answer to a broad trend: one claim, one class, one valuation that no longer fits the file.
Send us your worksheet and loss runs, and we'll show how your mod stacks up before renewal.