Workers' Comp Rates for Outside Sales Personnel (Class Code 8742)

What's Included Under Class Code 8742

NCCI's Scopes language for 8742 covers outside salespersons, sales representatives, manufacturers' representatives, route-sales solicitors who take orders without making delivery, outside collectors (including bill collectors and repossession solicitors who do not take physical possession), insurance agents and brokers calling on prospects off-site, real-estate agents showing property, pharmaceutical sales representatives detailing physicians, and similar field-sales roles. Time spent at the home office on phone follow-up, paperwork, or sales meetings is included in 8742 as long as the employee's principal duty is outside solicitation.

The dividing line for 8742 is whether the work is performed away from the employer's premises and confined to soliciting, ordering, or collecting — without delivery. An employee who spends 90% of working time visiting customers and 10% at a desk reconciling orders is 8742. An employee whose desk job at the office is the principal duty, with occasional outside trips, is not — that role belongs in 8810 (if the desk work is exclusively clerical and physically separated) or in the governing classification.

When the same employee both solicits sales AND delivers product, 8742 does not apply, and Rule 1-B-2-c splits the reassignment by *how* the goods move. An employee who uses a vehicle to deliver or pick up goods — even if they also collect or sell — goes to the drivers classification applicable to the business, which for most non-trucking employers is 7380. An employee who walks or takes public transportation to deliver goods — again, even if they also collect or sell — goes to the **governing** classification instead, not to 7380 (e.g., a retail store route salesperson who restocks shelves on foot). Note what Rule 1 does *not* say: there is no written sample-carrying carve-out in the rule text. The common audit reading that a manufacturer's rep showing a sample case stays in 8742 rests on Scopes interpretation and carrier practice, not on the Basic Manual rule — so it is worth confirming with the auditor rather than assuming.

The 'Outside' Threshold and the Rule 1 Disqualifiers

NCCI requires that the employee work principally outside of the employer's premises for 8742 to apply. There is no fixed percentage in the rule text, but audit practice generally treats the threshold as more than 50% of working time spent away from employer-owned or employer-leased space. A field salesperson who is on the road four days a week and at the home office one day qualifies; a sales coordinator who is at the office four days and visits one customer per week does not.

Beyond the three delivery bars above, Rule 1-B-2-c names two disqualifiers that catch people by surprise because they have nothing to do with delivering anything. First, an employee who **travels between the employer's own locations as a district or regional manager**, performing duties that are not outside sales or collection, is not 8742 — that time falls under Rule 2-G (Interchange of Labor). Second, an employee who **performs job-site measurements or inspections to prepare bids for a construction contractor** is not 8742, which pulls estimators off the standard exception and into the contractor's own classification even though estimating looks like pre-sale work. There is also a wording bar: 8742 does not apply at all when the basic classification wording for the business already includes "Outside Salesperson" and/or "Collector" — the payroll is already inside the governing class and cannot be split out twice.

Separately from the rule text, carriers commonly deny the 8742 split for operative work performed at the customer location — an outside sales rep who installs the product they sold, demonstrates equipment in a way that involves handling moving parts, or performs service work on-site (repair, calibration, maintenance). Rule 1 does not spell this out; it follows from the general principle that payroll is assigned to the classification of the work actually performed. It is nonetheless the most common 8742 audit dispute: HVAC sales reps who close the sale and then commission the equipment, security-system salespersons who climb to scope camera mounting, and software-sales engineers who go on-site to install typically lose the 8742 split for those hours.

Inside salespersons who work at a desk taking phone or web orders are not 8742. If their work is exclusively clerical and physically separated from operative hazards, they are 8810. If the role involves any product handling — pulling samples, packaging, demo of merchandise — they are absorbed into the governing classification.

8742 vs the Other Standard Exceptions and Common Misclassifications

The NCCI Standard Exceptions are 8810 (Clerical Office Employees NOC), 8871 (Clerical Office Telecommuter Employees), 7380 (Drivers, Chauffeurs, Messengers and Their Helpers NOC — Commercial), 8742 (Salespersons or Collectors — Outside), and 8748 (Automobile Salespersons) — five codes, which Rule 1-B-2 presents as four lettered items because 8810 and 8871 share one set of duty and site tests. All of them can be split out from the governing classification and rated separately, but the boundaries between them are strict. An outside sales rep whose primary role is calling on customers is 8742, even with a desk at the home office. A driver whose role is delivery — even if they pitch additional products on the route — is 7380 or governing, not 8742. A fully-remote inside salesperson taking phone orders from home is 8871 (telecommuter clerical), not 8742, because there is no outside solicitation.

The one most people miss is 8748, Automobile Salespersons. It is the standard exception for employees selling or long-term-leasing automobiles, mobile homes, and boats, and Rule 1-B-2-d says explicitly that these employees "are subject to the same rules and treatment as Code 8742." Two consequences follow. A car, RV, or boat salesperson does not go in 8742 — 8748 is their code, whether they sell on the lot or away from it, and unlike 8742 the "outside" test does not gate it. And 8748 is a standard exception covering *salespersons only*: a dealership's service advisors, technicians, lot attendants, and porters are not 8748, they belong in the dealership's governing classification. Treating 8748 as an all-employees dealership code is the single most expensive classification mistake in the automotive segment, because it moves shop-floor payroll onto a sales rate.

The most common 8742 audit misclassification is "sales-plus-service" — the employee whose business card says "sales representative" but who in practice spends substantial time on installation, repair, or product demonstration involving operative hazards. Examples that fail 8742: an auto-parts outside sales rep who also delivers stock and helps load (absorbed into governing or 7380); a route salesperson for a beverage distributor who restocks customer coolers (governing); a security-system sales rep who climbs ladders to scope camera mounting (operative reassignment); a manufacturers' rep who installs sample equipment at trade shows (operative).

California's WCIRB Outside Salespersons classification reads more narrowly than NCCI's 8742, with stricter limits on incidental at-customer work and its own dual-wage rules. The independent-bureau states (NYCIRB, PCRB, DCRB, NJCRIB, ICRB, CAOM, NCRB) generally follow NCCI for 8742 but adopt their own Scopes text — always verify the local bureau before relying on a quoted rate. Misclassifying a California outside salesperson under the NCCI scope is a frequent source of audit penalties.