Does an NCCI rate decrease lower my workers' comp premium automatically?

No. Premium equals manual rate times payroll times your EMR. A rate decrease lowers the manual rate, but if your mod rises, the net premium can still go up. On $500,000 payroll at a $6.00 manual rate, a mod shift from 0.90 to 1.10 adds roughly $6,000 to base premium, which more than offsets a 7.1% rate cut (NCCI, 2026).

What is the unit-stat date and why does it matter for my mod?

The unit-stat date is the cutoff NCCI uses to capture claim values for your experience rating. If a claim is still listed as open on the unit-stat date but was actually closed by the carrier before that date, the inflated reserve stays on your worksheet. That error raises your mod for up to three years unless corrected through a worksheet revision.

How often should I review my NCCI experience rating worksheet?

At minimum once per year, before your renewal cycle begins. The worksheet covers three policy years of data, and errors in any of those years compound. Claim values, class codes, and open-versus-closed status should all match the carrier's current loss runs. Discrepancies are common and correctable, but only if someone checks.

What types of errors appear most often on contractor mod worksheets?

The most frequent errors are stale reserves on settled claims, incorrect class code assignments, and claims still marked open past the unit-stat date. Subcontractor injuries can also appear on a general contractor's worksheet when certificate-of-insurance documentation is incomplete. Each error inflates the mod and raises premium.

Field ReportAugust 10, 2026 · 4 min read

NCCI 2026 Rate Filings: Why Lower Rates Don't Cut Your Premium

NCCI's 2026 Southeast filings show rate decreases of 6.6% in Alabama and 7.1% in Florida. Your premium can still rise. The mod on your worksheet decides whether the cut reaches your renewal.

By TraciThe Orson Group

Field Report

−7.1%

NCCI filed average rate decrease for Florida, effective 2026

NCCI 2026 Filing Summary

At a glance

NCCI filed 2026 workers' comp rate decreases across the Southeast, including 6.6% in Alabama and 7.1% in Florida (NCCI, 2026). A rate decrease does not guarantee lower premium. Premium equals manual rate times payroll times your experience modification rate. When your EMR rises from 0.90 to 1.10, the rate cut is wiped out and premium climbs roughly $6,000 on $500,000 of payroll before carrier credits.

The news out of NCCI (the National Council on Compensation Insurance) this filing season reads like a discount. Alabama got a 6.6% decrease. Florida got 7.1% (NCCI, 2026). Oklahoma and Virginia saw reductions in the same range. For a construction CFO or safety director scanning the headlines, the instinct is to expect a cheaper renewal.

That instinct is wrong as often as it is right.

A rate filing changes the manual rate, which is the per-$100-of-payroll price tag a carrier starts with before any account-specific adjustments. Your actual premium is manual rate times payroll times your EMR (Experience Modification Rate, also called the mod). The filing controls one of those three variables. Your worksheet controls another. Payroll is the third. When the mod moves against you, it cancels the rate cut and then some.

The math that kills the headline

Take a contractor with $500,000 in payroll in a class code carrying a manual rate of $6.00. At a 0.90 mod, the base premium is $27,000. At a 1.10 mod, it is $33,000. That $6,000 swing is larger than the savings from a 7.1% rate decrease on the same account, which would shave roughly $1,917 off the manual-rate portion (NCCI, 2026).

The mod is the lever. The filing is background noise. You can estimate the dollar impact of a mod shift on your own payroll in a few minutes.

What the worksheet hides

In our reviews of Southeast contractor worksheets, the most common pattern is not a claim that inflated the mod. It is an error that did. Payroll assigned to the wrong class code. A claim still showing as open on the unit-stat date when the carrier closed it months ago. A reserve that was never reduced to match the actual settlement. A subcontractor's injury landing on the general contractor's experience because the certificate of insurance was incomplete.

Each of these is a line item on your NCCI experience rating worksheet. Each one has a dollar value attached. Each one moves the mod. And none of them show up in a rate filing.

NCCI does not publish error rates by category. But the worksheets we audit tell a consistent story. Most contractors with a mod above 1.00 have at least one data point on their worksheet that does not match the carrier's current claim file. Some have several.

Why the quiet months are the expensive ones

The filing season gets attention because it is public and dated. The worksheet errors are quiet. They sit in your experience period for three years, compounding silently. A stale reserve from a claim that settled 14 months ago inflates your mod at every renewal until it falls off. A class code that should have been split between low-hazard and high-hazard operations overstates your expected losses for the entire policy period.

Carriers do not flag these. NCCI does not audit them proactively. The worksheet is generated from data submitted by your carrier, and the carrier's data comes from their claim file. If the claim file is wrong, the worksheet is wrong, and the mod is wrong. The error flows downstream and nobody upstream corrects it.

That is the gap. Rate filings are public events. Worksheet corrections are private transactions between you, NCCI, and your carrier. The firms that wait for a filing to find savings are looking at the wrong document.

What an audit would check

An audit checks the worksheet against the source. That means comparing every claim value on the NCCI worksheet to the carrier's current loss runs. It means verifying that class codes on the worksheet match the work actually performed, not the code the carrier defaulted to at bind. It means confirming that any claim still showing open on the unit-stat date is actually still open in the carrier's system. Most contractors we review have at least one discrepancy. Most do not know it until someone looks.

A rate decrease you cannot fully capture is a number on a page. The mod is the lever left. Send us your NCCI worksheet and we will tell you what is on it.