Workers' Compensation Rates in Massachusetts (2026)

State Overview

Massachusetts has its own independent rating bureau (WCRIBMA) and uses administered (fixed) rates rather than loss costs, so rates change only when a general revision is approved. The current rates took effect July 1, 2024, when the Commissioner ordered a 14.6% decrease; the Division of Insurance then rejected WCRIBMA's proposed 7.1% increase for July 1, 2025 (Docket R2024-01), leaving those rates unchanged. On July 7, 2026 the Supreme Judicial Court remanded the 2024 and 2025 decisions for a fuller explanation of the 14.6% cut, so the figures here may be revised. The state has relatively high workers' comp costs due to generous benefits.

Understanding Massachusetts Workers' Comp Rates

Massachusetts runs its own workers' comp rating system outside NCCI. The Workers' Compensation Rating and Inspection Bureau of Massachusetts (WCRIBMA) is the state's licensed rating organization, and Massachusetts is an administered-rate state: WCRIBMA files a single set of manual rates that, once approved by the Commissioner of the Division of Insurance, apply uniformly to all insurers, rather than each carrier filing its own. Insurers can compete through dividend plans, scheduled credits, and the Massachusetts deductible programs, but the base manual rate per class code is the same across carriers — a structurally different model from competitive states like Texas.

Rate changes in Massachusetts are decided through a contested filing before the Division of Insurance, and the Commissioner can reject the bureau's request. On May 15, 2025, Commissioner Michael Caljouw rejected WCRIBMA's proposed 7.1% average increase and held rates flat, a decision the Division estimated would save Massachusetts employers roughly $80 million over the following year. The State Rating Bureau and the Attorney General's Office had argued the bureau leaned too heavily on two years of pandemic-era loss data instead of a longer five-year window. WCRIBMA has since made no rate filing for 2026, so the manual rates that took effect July 1, 2024 are still the ones in force — which is why the filing date on this page is more than two years old rather than out of date. On July 7, 2026 the Supreme Judicial Court remanded the 2024 and 2025 rate decisions, holding that the Commissioner had not adequately explained the 14.6% decrease ordered for 2024 when WCRIBMA had proposed 7.6%; that remand could change the approved rates, so employers should confirm the current manual rate for their class code with their carrier or WCRIBMA. The figures on this page are filing-based benchmarks, not binding quotes.

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

There is no Massachusetts workers' comp class code for a job title. Massachusetts does not take NCCI's classification decisions — the WCRIBMA is the rating organization that classifies Massachusetts employers, 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.

WCRIBMA publishes Massachusetts's classifications in the Massachusetts Workers Compensation and Employers Liability Insurance Manual (a living manual with no edition year, called the Mass Manual by the Division of Insurance's own examiners — WCRIBMA maintains it and the Commissioner approves it, and it changes only when the Division approves a filing under M.G.L. c. 152, § 53A and 211 CMR 110.00. The manual rates in it are the ones the Commissioner ordered effective July 1, 2024 in Docket R2023-03, left standing when the Division disapproved WCRIBMA's proposed 7.1% increase in Docket R2024-01 on May 15, 2025). To confirm the classification for a specific business, use WCRIBMA's own Massachusetts site, the one the Division of Insurance links from its Workers Compensation Insurance page, which carries the Mass Manual alongside the bureau's Class Code Look-Up and Classification Revision History pages — that is the filed authority for Massachusetts, and a code quoted from another state's manual is not. Massachusetts writes the appeal into the policy itself. M.G.L. c. 152, § 52D provides for appeals by a person aggrieved by the application of the Bureau's rating system, and the Massachusetts Notice to Policyholders' Endorsement is attached mandatorily to every voluntary and assigned-risk policy that lists Massachusetts in Item 3.A of its Information Page. That endorsement instructs the policyholder to submit a written request for a review of the method by which their classification, rates, premium or audit result was determined. If WCRIBMA neither grants nor rejects that request within thirty days, or the policyholder is not satisfied with the review, the appeal goes to the Commissioner of Insurance — and 211 CMR 110.11 carries the same route through a rate proceeding, where a person aggrieved by a presiding officer's decision the Commissioner has not affirmed appeals to the Commissioner under M.G.L. c. 26, § 7. WCRIBMA hears the first stage through an Appeals Subcommittee its Governing Committee appointed in May 2017, made up of four carrier representatives plus one labor, one employer and one agent/producer representative.

Massachusetts is the state where the classification itself is approved by the regulator, not merely filed with it. 211 CMR 110.02 defines a Proceeding as one held to consider the Commissioner's approval of classifications of risks, premiums, and manual rules, and defines a Rate Filing as a request to modify the filer's manuals of classifications, rates, or rules — so a Massachusetts classification change is a docketed adjudicatory hearing, noticed in a newspaper of general circulation twenty-one days ahead under 211 CMR 110.06, with the Attorney General able to appear as a statutory intervenor and the Division's own State Rating Bureau filing against the bureau's numbers. The Division of Insurance says the same thing in its own words: it has the authority to approve or disapprove workers' compensation rates, industrial classifications, rating plans and policy forms, and it appointed WCRIBMA to perform most of the day-to-day operations. Two things a multi-state employer gets wrong here. First, Massachusetts having its own bureau does not put NCCI out of the picture: the Commonwealth uses the NCCI Scopes Manual as a guide for understanding and assigning classifications, and WCRIBMA gives NCCI its Massachusetts exceptions, which sit in the State Addendum section of each classification code — so a Scopes entry read without the Massachusetts addendum is not the Massachusetts rule, and WCRIBMA separately maintains a Massachusetts Master Alphabetical Classification Index of its own. Second, the carrier's auditor does not have the last word: Appendix A of the Mass Manual gives WCRIBMA the right to inspect a risk to determine the proper classification and then promulgate that classification to the carrier of record, and the bureau runs a Classification Unit that performs on-site classification inspections.

WCRIBMA's own Massachusetts site, the one the Division of Insurance links from its Workers Compensation Insurance page, which carries the Mass Manual alongside the bureau's Class Code Look-Up and Classification Revision History pages (official Massachusetts lookup)

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