Workers' Compensation Rates in Montana (2026)

State Overview

Montana requires all employers to carry workers' comp. The state has a competitive market with the Montana State Fund as a major carrier.

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

There is no Montana workers' comp class code for a job title. NCCI files the classifications used in Montana, 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 Montana's classifications in the NCCI Basic Manual for Workers Compensation and Employers Liability Insurance, as supplemented by the Montana Classification Review Committee (no Montana edition number, because Montana does not adopt a dated book — it adopts the manual by rule and re-adopts it every time NCCI changes it. ARM 6.6.8301(1) has the Classification Review Committee "adopt[] and incorporate[] by reference the NCCI Basic Manual for Workers Compensation and Employers Liability Insurance, as supplemented, including classifications established or revised in accordance with (2) below and 33-16-1023(3), MCA", for employers bound by compensation plan No. 2 and plan No. 3. The version in force is therefore whatever that rule incorporated when it was last amended, which was effective September 26, 2026 by MAR Notice No. 2026-145.2 — the amendment carrying NCCI Item B-1452, whose Montana classification changes themselves take effect for new and renewal policies on and after 12:01 a.m. July 1, 2027). To confirm the classification for a specific business, use the Montana rule that adopts the manual, ARM 6.6.8301 — which is the closest thing the state has to a lookup, because there is no free per-class listing and no search box anywhere in the Montana estate. What the rule gives you instead is the manual's location: a copy "is available for public inspection at the Office of the Commissioner of Insurance, 840 Helena Ave., Helena, MT 59601", and copies "may be obtained by writing to the Montana Classification Review Committee in care of the National Council on Compensation Insurance, Inc., c/o Regulatory Assurance Department, 901 Peninsula Corporate Circle, Boca Raton FL 33487-1362", with the requester paying the committee's cost of providing them. Read the rule's own text for the classifications it establishes, and read it in the Administrative Rules of Montana, published by the Montana Secretary of State rather than by NCCI — that is the filed authority for Montana, and a code quoted from another state's manual is not. Arizona and Georgia give a standing board the power to review a classification already assigned; Montana goes a step further and hands a state body the classification SYSTEM itself. § 33-16-1012(1)(b), MCA puts the "final determination regarding the establishment or revision of all classifications" with a five-member Classification Review Committee — two private-carrier representatives, a licensed independent producer, a Montana State Fund employee and an insured employer (§ 33-16-1011(2), MCA) — and § 33-16-1011(5) has NCCI, as the advisory organization designated under § 33-16-1023, staff and fund that committee rather than decide for it. The employer's route is a notice of administrative appeal filed with the committee, and ARM 6.6.8202(1) carries a deadline that is easy to miss: the employer "must request an in-person hearing simultaneously with the filing of the notice of administrative appeal", and if it does not, the committee may hold a remote hearing under ARM 6.6.8206 in its place. The first hearing is informal and non-binding (ARM 6.6.8202A), relevant information has to reach the committee secretary c/o NCCI not less than 15 days beforehand, and the committee issues a written advisory decision within 30 days, after which each party has 30 days to say in writing whether it will be bound. Miss that window and ARM 6.6.8202A(7) makes the advisory decision binding by default; use it, and the matter goes to an informal contested case before the same committee heard de novo under Title 2, chapter 4, part 6, MCA. Judicial review then runs to the Workers' Compensation Court under § 33-16-1012(2)(c), MCA — not a district court, and not NCCI's Basic Manual Appendix G dispute process, which is why Item B-1432 lists Montana among the states given separate treatment.

Two things about Montana surprise an employer arriving from another NCCI state. First, a national NCCI classification change is not a Montana change until the Classification Review Committee adopts it by rule: ARM 6.6.8301(2) lets the committee "amend the definition of a rate classification, establish a new rate classification, or delete an existing rate classification" only through Montana Administrative Procedure Act rulemaking, so there is a gap between NCCI's effective date and Montana's. The gap is real and not theoretical. NCCI Item B-1451, which creates Code 8871 for clerical telecommuter employees, was published for Montana in MAR Notice No. 2025-192.1 on November 7, 2025 with all changes proposed effective January 1, 2026, and the committee voted on December 9, 2025 to adopt it; ARM 6.6.8301's own amendment history nonetheless records no amendment between September 23, 2023 and September 26, 2026, and a sweep of all 710 entries in every 2025 and 2026 issue of the Montana Administrative Register returns exactly three Classification Review Committee notices — the November 7, 2025 proposal, the July 24, 2026 proposal and the September 25, 2026 notice of adoption. So check the rule, not NCCI's national item, before assuming a code exists in Montana. Second, Montana still has Montana-specific codes and its own table of classifications by hazard group, and one of them is on its way out: Item B-1452 eliminates the Montana-specific Code 2004—Bakery—Retail—All Operations in favor of multistate Code 9083—Baked Goods Shop & Drivers, and replaces Montana's own Code 2003 phraseology with the multistate one, for policies effective on and after July 1, 2027. Finally, the classification system is the same whichever plan the employer is under — ARM 6.6.8301 covers compensation plan No. 2 (a private carrier, Title 39, ch. 71, part 22) and plan No. 3 (Montana State Fund, part 23) alike, and § 33-16-1002, MCA applies the rate-making part to both — but the rate on top of it is not built the same way. A plan No. 2 carrier applies its own loss cost multiplier to NCCI's advisory loss costs; Montana State Fund's board sets the state fund's rates itself under §§ 39-71-2311 and 39-71-2330, MCA on an independent actuary's recommendation and files them with the Commissioner, and because § 39-71-2313(2), MCA requires the state fund to insure any Montana employer who asks unless it has defaulted on a state fund obligation, Montana has no assigned-risk pool for an employer to be routed into. One practical note on where to read any of this: the Administrative Rules of Montana are published by the Secretary of State under §§ 2-4-312 and 2-4-313, MCA, so ARM 6.6.8301 is free to read, while the manual it incorporates is not; and the Commissioner's own rates page points the public at SERFF Filing Access for Montana for the carriers' filed rate and rule filings at no cost, though that search sits behind a user agreement.

the Montana rule that adopts the manual, ARM 6.6.8301 — which is the closest thing the state has to a lookup, because there is no free per-class listing and no search box anywhere in the Montana estate. What the rule gives you instead is the manual's location: a copy "is available for public inspection at the Office of the Commissioner of Insurance, 840 Helena Ave., Helena, MT 59601", and copies "may be obtained by writing to the Montana Classification Review Committee in care of the National Council on Compensation Insurance, Inc., c/o Regulatory Assurance Department, 901 Peninsula Corporate Circle, Boca Raton FL 33487-1362", with the requester paying the committee's cost of providing them. Read the rule's own text for the classifications it establishes, and read it in the Administrative Rules of Montana (official Montana lookup)

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