Workers' Comp Rates for Clerical Office Employees (Class Code 8810)

What's Included Under Class Code 8810

NCCI's Scopes language for 8810 covers employees whose duties are "exclusively" clerical: bookkeepers, accounting clerks, receptionists, file clerks, secretaries, data-entry clerks, billing staff, switchboard operators, and similar administrative roles. The "exclusively" qualifier is strict — an employee who occasionally helps stock shelves, makes deliveries, handles inventory, or performs any operative task loses 8810 eligibility and is reassigned to the governing classification of the business.

Effective in NCCI states starting March 1, 2021 (NCCI Item B-1438), permanent telecommuter clerical employees are assigned to a separate Standard Exception — Class Code 8871 (Clerical Telecommuter Employees) — rather than 8810. The dividing line is location: 8810 covers clerical work in the employer's physical office; 8871 covers clerical work performed at the employee's home or other non-employer location more than 50% of the time. Hybrid employees splitting time between office and home stay in 8810 unless the home portion exceeds the 50% threshold per the NCCI rule.

Drafting and design staff who use technical instruments belong in Class Code 8812 (Clerical Office Employees — Including Drafting), not 8810. The 8812 code carries a slightly higher rate to reflect the modest additional risk profile of drafting work.

The Physical Separation Rule (When 8810 Can Be Split Out)

For 8810 to apply, the clerical work must be done in an area that is "physically separated by floors, walls, partitions, counters, or other physical barriers from all operative hazards of the business." This is the strictest test in 8810 audits — not a guideline. A bookkeeper at a desk in the corner of an auto-repair bay is NOT 8810: the clerical payroll gets absorbed into the 8380 shop classification because there is no physical separation from the operative hazard. A receptionist behind a counter in a restaurant dining room is similarly absorbed into 9082.

The clerical area can be in the same building as operations, but it must be a distinct enclosed area. A separate room with its own door qualifies. An open-plan workspace with no barrier between desks and machine-shop floor does not. This rule generates frequent audit disputes — an employer who claims "we have an office area" but cannot point to walls or partitions usually loses the 8810 split and pays the higher governing rate on the full payroll.

Audit Records That Protect an 8810 Split

For the workers comp class code 8810, 8810 class code, and wc code 8810 query cluster, the practical issue is not only the definition — it is how an employer proves the split when the policy is audited. Keep written job descriptions, payroll records that separate clerical wages from governing-operation wages, and a floor plan or dated photos showing the clerical workstation behind walls, partitions, counters, or another physical barrier. Indiana's NCCI-adopted classification rules list the same site controls: the 8810 workstation must be separated from factories, stores, shops, construction sites, warehouses, yards, product-display areas, and other operative hazards.

Mixed-duty records are the common failure point. A payroll row labeled "office" is weak evidence if the employee also handles inventory, stocks shelves, walks the shop floor for non-clerical work, supervises non-clerical employees, visits job sites, performs physical labor, or makes outside sales calls. If those duties are regular rather than incidental, the safer assumption is that payroll belongs in the governing class or a different Standard Exception such as 8742 outside sales or 7380 commercial drivers.

For remote or hybrid clerical staff, document both duties and work location. A fully remote clerical employee usually belongs under 8871 clerical telecommuter in NCCI states rather than 8810, while a hybrid employee may stay in 8810 unless the governing bureau's telecommuter rule moves the whole payroll to 8871. Keep work-location logs or HR records with the audit file instead of trying to reconstruct the split after the policy year closes.

8810 vs the Other Standard Exceptions and Common Misclassifications

The NCCI Standard Exceptions are 8810 (Clerical Office Employees), 8871 (Clerical Telecommuter Employees), 8742 (Salespersons or Collectors — Outside), and 7380 (Drivers, Chauffeurs, Messengers and Their Helpers — Commercial). All four can be split out from the governing classification and rated separately, but the boundaries between them matter. An outside sales rep who spends most of the week visiting customers is 8742, not 8810, even with a desk at the home office. A delivery driver who happens to do filing between routes is 7380, not 8810. A fully-remote bookkeeper is 8871, not 8810. Some governing classifications already build clerical staff into their own scope, so no 8810 split applies at all: a doctor's office reports its reception and billing employees under physician & clerical 8832, and a nonprofit or community social-services agency reports its administrative, program, and fundraising staff under social services organization 8864 — both codes include those office workers by definition, so carving them out to 8810 is incorrect.

The most common 8810 audit misclassification is "clerical-plus" — an employee whose job title is "office clerk" but who in practice handles product, inventory, or any task connected to operative hazards. Examples that fail 8810: a counter clerk in a retail store who rings up customers and stocks shelves (absorbed into 8017); a "warehouse office" clerk who occasionally helps load trucks; a body-shop bookkeeper who walks through the shop bay to retrieve work orders. A separate boundary catches the service side of office work: a technician who installs, services, or repairs the office's own machines, copiers, and computer hardware is field service under office machine installation/repair 5191, not clerical 8810, even though the work happens in or around an office. NCCI's working test: the clerical employee should be able to perform their entire job without ever entering an operative-hazard area.

California's WCIRB Standard Classification 8810 reads more narrowly than NCCI's, excluding certain duties NCCI permits. California also handles telecommuter clerical work through a different scheme than NCCI's 8871 — the WCIRB Uniform Statistical Reporting Plan has its own dual-wage and reporting rules. Before quoting a California rate, verify the classification on the WCIRB Classification Search.