Workers' Compensation Rates in Arizona (2026)

State Overview

Arizona uses NCCI rates and has a competitive workers' comp market with moderate rates.

Understanding Arizona Workers' Comp Rates

Arizona is an NCCI state — the National Council on Compensation Insurance files annual loss-cost recommendations with the Arizona Department of Insurance and Financial Institutions (DIFI), which reviews and approves the filing before insurers can write business at the new rates. The Industrial Commission of Arizona (ICA), a separate agency, administers the workers' comp system itself: it approves self-insurance applications, maintains the medical fee schedule, runs the Claims and Award/Hearing Divisions, and enforces coverage compliance under Arizona Revised Statutes Title 23.

On January 1, 2026, an NCCI-filed average rate decrease of 6.7% took effect in Arizona — the 12th consecutive annual reduction. DIFI Interim Director Maria Ailor attributed the cut to a continued decline in workers' compensation claim frequency. Arizona's voluntary market currently includes about 335 insurers writing roughly 120,000 policies and generating about $866 million in annual premium, so even a modest statewide-average change moves a large amount of small-business cost. The 6.7% is an average across all class codes; individual class codes shifted by more or less than that, and your actual premium also reflects your insurer's loss-cost multiplier (LCM), your experience modification factor (XMod), and any schedule rating credits or debits.

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

There is no Arizona workers' comp class code for a job title. NCCI files the classifications used in Arizona, 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 Arizona's classifications in the uniform classification plan that the director of insurance and financial institutions approves under A.R.S. Section 20-344(A) and that every rating organization and every insurer writing workers' compensation in the state must adhere to (no state-titled book and no edition year — Arizona designates a plan rather than adopting a manual by name. A.R.S. Section 20-343(2) defines the classification plan as the system that groups industries, occupations or operations with a similar exposure to loss into rate classifications for workers' compensation rating, rate making and statistical reporting; Section 20-371(J) has the director designate the classification plan adopted by the designated rating organization as the state's uniform classification plan; and Section 20-371(F) and (G) make that organization file statewide workers' compensation rates with the director on or before August 1 each year, effective the following January 1. What governs is therefore the current uniform rate filing rather than a dated edition, and the Department of Insurance and Financial Institutions announced it reviewed NCCI's filing for a 6.7% reduction taking effect January 1, 2026 — the twelfth consecutive annual decrease). To confirm the classification for a specific business, use the Department of Insurance and Financial Institutions' own Rating Organization page, which says in the department's words what a workers' compensation rating organization files in Arizona — the manual of risk classifications, rules and rates that every member insurer must use as its own, subject only to a filed deviation — and links the licensing statute behind it, published by the Arizona Department of Insurance and Financial Institutions rather than by NCCI — that is the filed authority for Arizona, and a code quoted from another state's manual is not. Arizona is the rare state with a standing forum built for exactly this argument. A.R.S. Section 20-367 establishes a workers' compensation appeals board inside the Department of Insurance and Financial Institutions — nine to eleven members appointed by the director to three-year terms, five of them insurer representatives and four of them public members, of whom at least two represent employers — and Section 20-367.01 is the procedure. An insured first sends the rating organization or the insurer a written request, and within a reasonable time and on payment of a reasonable fee must be given all pertinent information related to the rate. A person aggrieved by the way a rating system has been applied then sends a written request for review to the board, may present the grievance in person or through a representative, and a representative of the rating organization whose rating system is under appeal has to attend the hearing and explain how that system was applied to them. If the board does not act within thirty days after receiving the request, the aggrieved person may proceed as if it had been rejected. The board mails written notice of its decision, and within thirty days of that notice the aggrieved person may appeal to the director, who affirms, modifies or reverses after a hearing held on at least ten days' written notice to the person and to the rating organization or insurer. The appellant pays the cost of recording the board's proceedings and the cost of the transcript and record on appeal.

Arizona is an NCCI state that publishes RATES rather than loss costs, and that is the thing a multi-state employer gets wrong here. In most NCCI jurisdictions the bureau files advisory loss costs and each carrier multiplies them by its own loss cost multiplier, so no two quotes start from the same number. Arizona does not work that way. A.R.S. Section 20-343(9) defines the uniform rate filing as the filing that carries all of the workers' compensation rates insurers must adhere to; Section 20-371(F) has the director designate one rating organization to make it; Section 20-371(G) requires that filing on or before August 1 for rates effective the following January 1; and Section 20-359(A) lets a member insurer depart from it only by filing up to six uniform percentage deviations off the statewide rate portion, plus a subclassification rate-related rule, with a deviation and schedule rating barred from being applied to the same risk at once. So two Arizona quotes for the same class code start from the same filed rate and differ by a published deviation — and a deviation filed under Section 20-359(A)(1) expires the following December 31 unless it is refiled. Insurers covering firefighters and fire investigators may file a seventh deviation, increasing the statewide rates for those class codes to fund the cancer presumption in Section 23-901.09, and it sits on file for sixty days rather than thirty. Two further Arizona-specific traps. Every insurer writing workers' compensation in the state must be a member of one workers' compensation rating organization under Section 20-363(D), so there is no off-bureau carrier to shop. And Section 20-344(C) lets an insurer develop subclassifications of the uniform classification plan, filed at least fifteen days before use and disapproved only if the data they produce cannot be reported consistently with the uniform plans — which means an Arizona quote can carry a carrier-specific class sitting underneath the state's four-digit one, and comparing two Arizona quotes code for code is not always comparing like with like.

the Department of Insurance and Financial Institutions' own Rating Organization page, which says in the department's words what a workers' compensation rating organization files in Arizona — the manual of risk classifications, rules and rates that every member insurer must use as its own, subject only to a filed deviation — and links the licensing statute behind it (official Arizona lookup)

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