PEOs for Workers Comp - Are They Worth It?

Workers Comp PEO's (Professional Employment Organizations) have gained a great amount of attention lately. Are they a viable source of Workers Comp coverage for your business?

The unregulated PEO's of the past caused all state insurance departments to initiate more laws, rules, and regs over the last few years. I am sure you have seen the news headlines where certain PEO's were shut down and their owners were sometimes prosecuted for fraud and other crimes. I have seen very few of those articles in the last two years.

My last article mentioned the possibility of using a PEO as a possible viable way to avoid going into the risk pool and paying premiums of up to 800% more than the usual Workers Compensation marketplace for coverage.

Before exploring the PEO marketplace, you would need to pause and think about how your company came to be possibly insured by an Assigned Risk Pool insurance carrier. The same considerations that may have landed your company in the risk pool may prevent you from being considered by any of the PEO's.

The PEO's underwriters are going to examine the same information that the carriers have covered in the decision to not underwrite your business. Having your Workers Comp claims loss runs will speed up the process greatly.

The best way we have seen to explore the PEO marketplace is with a PEO broker. There are many of them online. Googling the term PEO or PEO broker will bring up hundreds of them.

We have come across a few PEO's and PEO brokers that have been great to work with over the last few years. As we are not agents, we do not sell any type of coverage. We have no bias as to one company or the other.

One of the questions we receive is how can PEO's write my business for a lower premium than the Assigned Risk Pool or regular marketplace? I will cover that next time along with a few advantages of using a PPO.

Email or call if you have questions