Workers' Compensation Rates in Missouri (2026)

State Overview

Missouri requires workers' comp for non-construction employers with five or more employees; construction-industry employers must carry coverage with one or more employees (MO Dept. of Labor, Division of Workers' Compensation). Rates are close to the national average.

Understanding Missouri Workers' Comp Rates

Missouri is an NCCI state. NCCI files advisory loss costs with the Missouri Department of Commerce and Insurance (DCI), which conducts an independent actuarial review before the loss costs may be used. The Division of Workers' Compensation within the Department of Labor and Industrial Relations (DOLIR) administers the benefit system — claims, disputes, and the Second Injury Fund — separately from the rate-setting function at DCI.

For 2026, NCCI filed a small loss-cost increase of about 1.3% — only the second increase in roughly six years, against a long-run decline in workplace injury frequency. DCI made the NCCI filing and its own independent actuarial review available for public inspection before the loss costs took effect. The 1.3% is a statewide average across all class codes; individual codes shifted differently, and your premium also reflects your insurer's loss-cost multiplier (LCM), experience modification factor, payroll, and schedule credits or debits. The rates table on this page reflects Missouri NCCI-filed loss costs; treat them as benchmarks, not quotes.

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

There is no Missouri workers' comp class code for a job title. NCCI files the classifications used in Missouri, 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 Missouri's classifications in the Basic Manual for Workers Compensation and Employers Liability Insurance — the document Missouri's statute calls the uniform classification system (no state edition is adopted by name in Missouri — § 287.955.1, RSMo makes every workers' compensation insurer adhere to the uniform classification system and uniform experience rating plan as filed with the Director by the advisory organization the Director designates, subject to the Director's disapproval, and § 287.955.4 has that organization file the manual rules built on top of it; what the Department of Commerce and Insurance publishes in place of an edition number is the set of Missouri values those Basic Manual rules take, among them the $250 expense constant under Rule 3-A-11, the $43,800 maximum for executive officers, LLC members, partners and sole proprietors under Rule 2-E, and the 85% U.S. Longshore and Harbor Workers' coverage percentage under Rule 3-A-4). To confirm the classification for a specific business, use the Missouri Workers' Compensation Rate Guide, the Department's own class-code search, which returns the highest, average and lowest final rate any carrier currently has on file for that code, published by the Missouri Department of Commerce and Insurance rather than by NCCI — that is the filed authority for Missouri, and a code quoted from another state's manual is not. Missouri keeps a standing board for this exact argument, and it can do something an appeal elsewhere cannot. The Department's Workers' Compensation Determinations Review Board reviews an insurer's or advisory organization's determination on uniform code classifications, Basic Manual rule interpretations, uniform experience rating plan rule interpretations, the calculation of an individual employer's modification factor and Missouri assigned risk plan underwriting rule interpretations — and on a code classification it may either move the employer to a classification that already exists or, where it finds sufficient experience to merit one, create a new classification code. The Department's own sequence is to raise it with the insurer first, then file a formal complaint with Consumer Services, and only then appeal to the board through the Property and Casualty Section. Running beside that administrative route is the statutory one: under § 287.965, RSMo any person or organization aggrieved by a filing already in effect — but expressly not the insurer or rating organization that made the filing — may apply in writing to the Director, who has thirty days to decide whether the grounds justify a hearing and must then give at least ten days' written notice of it.

Missouri does not have a rate. It has as many rates per class code as there are carriers writing it, and the Department publishes the spread. Under § 287.970, RSMo the advisory organization may not file rates, supplementary rate information or supporting information on behalf of an insurer, and § 287.972.1(4) lets it distribute only manuals of rating rules and schedules that stop short of final rates — so 20 CSR 500-6.950(3)(B)1. makes each insurer file final rates for every classification it writes in the voluntary market, not a loss cost multiplier. Missouri is then use-and-file rather than prior-approval: § 287.947.1 gives an insurer in a competitive market until thirty days after the effective date to file, and § 287.947.4 opens every filed rate to public inspection as soon as it is filed, which is what the Rate Guide is showing you. Queried on 2026-08-14 for code 8810, Clerical Office Employees NOC, it returned a high of $2.21, an average of $0.16 and a low of $0.05 per $100 of payroll — one classification, with the top filed rate more than forty times the bottom one. Two further Missouri wrinkles an out-of-state employer will not expect. Under § 287.955.2 an insurer may develop its own subclassifications of the uniform classification system and rate on them, filed with the Director thirty days before use, so the code on a Missouri policy is not always one of NCCI's. And the loss costs underneath those rates are not a single number either: 20 CSR 500-6.950(3)(A) and § 287.972.2 require the advisory organization's pure premium data to be distributed so it can be compared loss-developed without any trend factor, trended by the advisory organization, and trended by the Director himself, and the Department's filing instructions describe the resulting menu as four sets of loss costs a carrier may choose from.

the Missouri Workers' Compensation Rate Guide, the Department's own class-code search, which returns the highest, average and lowest final rate any carrier currently has on file for that code (official Missouri lookup)

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Related Guides for Missouri 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 Missouri rates side by side with up to two other states.

• Workers' Comp Premium Calculator

  Estimate annual premium from your Missouri 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 Missouri 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 Missouri 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 Missouri uses NCCI or an independent bureau — and why the difference changes how your premium is set.