Workers' Compensation Rates in Alaska (2026)

State Overview

Alaska has among the highest workers' comp rates in the nation due to remote geography and high injury costs.

How to find an Alaska workers' comp class code from a job description

There is no Alaska workers' comp class code for a job title. NCCI files the classifications used in Alaska, and the NCCI rules are what an auditor applies, and what gets classified is the employer's business — not the separate employments, occupations or operations inside it. "Machinist", "CNC operator", "general construction labor" and "data entry" are therefore work that sits inside whichever classification describes the business, not values you can look up on their own.

NCCI publishes Alaska's classifications in the Basic Manual for Workers Compensation and Employers Liability Insurance for Alaska (Basic Manual for Alaska) (no state-published edition number — Alaska approves the manual rather than reprinting it. NCCI is a licensed rating organization for workers' compensation in Alaska, and in the Division of Insurance's own words it develops and maintains the systems insurers use to classify employers and calculate premiums, with the Division holding regulatory oversight of those activities. What the state itself publishes is the result rather than the book: one advisory loss cost file and one assigned risk rate file per year, the current pair both headed Effective January 1, 2026, and both of them send the reader back to the Classification codes section of the Basic Manual for any state-specific classification phraseology and to the Alaska Basic Manual for the rules of the Alaska Contracting Classification Premium Adjustment Program. The manual itself is on no state page in any edition. The Division's route to a copy is that a policyholder requests one from NCCI directly, free of charge, referring to Form 54-2 which the Division says should be attached to the policy, and that anyone else obtains an insurer's approved manuals by following the instructions in the Public Records Requests section of the Division's website.). To confirm the classification for a specific business, use the Division of Insurance's own Workers Compensation Loss Costs & Assigned Risk Rates page, which posts two PDFs for every year from 2019 through 2026 — the advisory loss costs and the assigned risk rates — each printing a number against every four-digit class code, and which is the page the Division names when it says where current rates and loss costs by class can be obtained, published by the Alaska Division of Insurance, in the Department of Commerce, Community, and Economic Development rather than by NCCI — that is the filed authority for Alaska, and a code quoted from another state's manual is not. Alaska publishes a five-step ladder for a classification argument, and only the last two rungs are inside state government. The Division of Insurance sets it out on its own workers' compensation page, starting from the proposition that an employer has the right to appeal any classification assignment and premium assigned by its insurer. Step one is to try to resolve it with the insurance company, working through the agent or broker where there is one. Step two, if the insurer cannot resolve it to the policyholder's agreement, is to contact NCCI: questions about NCCI's dispute resolution process, or a request that a dispute be reviewed through it, go to NCCI Dispute Resolution Services at 901 Peninsula Corporate Circle, Boca Raton, Florida, and a request sent to NCCI must be sent simultaneously to every other party to the dispute. Step three, if that does not settle it, is a hearing before the Alaska Grievance Committee of NCCI. Step four is an appeal to the Director of Insurance for a hearing, after which an order is prepared for the director to adopt or refuse. Step five is the courts. The Division adds two cautions worth carrying into step two: NCCI's published dispute-resolution page is written across many jurisdictions and may not reflect all the Alaska details, and NCCI will supply printable access to the pertinent Alaska manual information free of charge on request.

Two things send an Alaskan employer to the wrong door, and the first one is the department. Alaska splits workers' compensation across two departments that do not overlap: the Division of Workers' Compensation, in the Department of Labor and Workforce Development, administers benefits, claims and the question of whether an employer must carry coverage at all, while the Division of Insurance, in the Department of Commerce, Community, and Economic Development, regulates the insurers. So a question about a class code, a rate, or an insurer's conduct belongs to the Division of Insurance, and the agency whose name matches the search term is the wrong one. The second is that the state publishes two numbers against every class code and neither of them is a quote. The advisory loss costs are headed ADVISORY LOSS COSTS - NOT RATES and exclude every expense provision except loss adjustment expense, so each voluntary-market carrier adds its own expense provision on top and two Alaska quotes for the same code legitimately differ; carriers may also file exceptions to NCCI's classifications, loss costs and rating plans, subject to the Division's review and approval. The assigned risk rates are finished rates with a minimum premium printed against each code, they apply to assigned risk policies only, and there the Division says NCCI's classifications, rates and rating plans are used without exception. Two Alaska-specific adjustments a multi-state employer will not have budgeted for sit on top of all of it. For contracting classifications subject to the Alaska Contracting Classification Premium Adjustment Program, a credit from manual premium runs on a published table keyed to the employer's average hourly wage — 1% at $41.25 an hour rising to 25% at $53.25 or more, for the fiscal year beginning January 1, 2026 — and the program's rules live in the Alaska Basic Manual rather than in the rate filing. And on an assigned risk policy a 25% surcharge applies to the modified premium above $6,000.

the Division of Insurance's own Workers Compensation Loss Costs & Assigned Risk Rates page, which posts two PDFs for every year from 2019 through 2026 — the advisory loss costs and the assigned risk rates — each printing a number against every four-digit class code, and which is the page the Division names when it says where current rates and loss costs by class can be obtained (official Alaska lookup)

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Related Guides for Alaska Employers

• The Complete Guide to Workers' Comp Costs in 2026

  National benchmarks, the 2026 state rate-change table, and how to budget your premium.

• Compare Workers' Comp Rates by State

  Rank all states for the same class code or compare Alaska rates side by side with up to two other states.

• Workers' Comp Premium Calculator

  Estimate annual premium from your Alaska class-code rate, payroll, and experience modification factor.

• Workers' Comp Class Codes Explained

  How NCCI assigns a code to each job and why it creates a 10–25× swing in your rate.

• NCCI Class Code Lookup & Directory

  Search workers' comp class codes by keyword to find the four-digit NCCI (or Alaska bureau) code for your business — then see how it is rated above.

• Experience Modification Rate (EMR) Explained

  How your claims history becomes a multiplier that raises or lowers your Alaska premium.

• 5 Proven Ways to Lower Your Workers' Comp Premium

  Tactics any small business can use to reduce cost at next renewal — from classification audits to return-to-work programs.

• How Rates Are Calculated: NCCI vs Independent States

  Whether Alaska uses NCCI or an independent bureau — and why the difference changes how your premium is set.