Workers' Comp Rate for Outside Sales Personnel in Wisconsin (Class Code 8742)
Last verified: 2026-05-05
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Related Class Codes in Wisconsin
8810
Clerical Office Employees
8820
Attorney - All Employees & Clerical
8803
Auditing, Accounting or Management Consulting
8871
Clerical Telecommuter Employees
8812
Clerical - Drafting Employees
About Class Code 8742: Scope, Inclusions, and Common Misclassifications
NCCI Class Code 8742 — "Salespersons or Collectors — Outside" — is one of the four Standard Exception classifications in the NCCI Basic Manual. It applies to employees engaged in soliciting sales, taking orders, or making collections away from the employer's premises, where the work is principally off-site and does not include delivering merchandise (other than samples) or performing any operative work at the customer location. Because 8742 is a Standard Exception, its payroll is split out from the governing classification of the business and rated separately — typically at one of the lowest rates in the entire NCCI manual, comparable to 8810 clerical.
Most U.S. states adopt the NCCI 8742 scope verbatim, but California (WCIRB), New York (NYCIRB), Pennsylvania (PCRB), Delaware (DCRB), New Jersey (NJCRIB), Indiana (ICRB), Michigan (CAOM), and North Carolina (NCRB) operate independent rating bureaus that publish their own classification text. WCIRB in particular reads the outside-sales scope more narrowly than NCCI does — verify the local bureau's text before relying on a quoted rate.
What's Included Under Class Code 8742
NCCI's Scopes language for 8742 covers outside salespersons, sales representatives, manufacturers' representatives, route-sales solicitors who take orders without making delivery, outside collectors (including bill collectors and repossession solicitors who do not take physical possession), insurance agents and brokers calling on prospects off-site, real-estate agents showing property, pharmaceutical sales representatives detailing physicians, and similar field-sales roles. Time spent at the home office on phone follow-up, paperwork, or sales meetings is included in 8742 as long as the employee's principal duty is outside solicitation.
The dividing line for 8742 is whether the work is performed away from the employer's premises and confined to soliciting, ordering, or collecting — without delivery and without operative work at the customer site. An employee who spends 90% of working time visiting customers and 10% at a desk reconciling orders is 8742. An employee whose desk job at the office is the principal duty, with occasional outside trips, is not — that role belongs in 8810 (if the desk work is exclusively clerical and physically separated) or in the governing classification.
When the same employee both solicits sales AND delivers product, 8742 does not apply. Delivery moves the role into 7380 (Drivers NOC) if the business is non-trucking, or into the governing classification if delivery is integral to the industry (e.g., a retail store route salesperson who restocks shelves). The narrow exception NCCI permits is the carrying of samples — a manufacturer's rep showing a sample case to a buyer remains in 8742; the same rep dropping off the actual purchased order does not.
The 'Outside' Threshold and Operative-Work Bar
NCCI requires that the employee work principally outside of the employer's premises for 8742 to apply. There is no fixed percentage in the Scopes text, but audit practice generally treats the threshold as more than 50% of working time spent away from employer-owned or employer-leased space. A field salesperson who is on the road four days a week and at the home office one day qualifies; a sales coordinator who is at the office four days and visits one customer per week does not.
The second 8742 bar is the prohibition on operative work at the customer location. An outside sales rep who installs the product they sold, demonstrates equipment in a way that involves handling moving parts, or performs any service work on-site (repair, calibration, maintenance) loses 8742 eligibility for those payroll hours — the operative time is reassigned to the governing classification of the work performed. This is the most common 8742 audit dispute: HVAC sales reps who close the sale and then commission the equipment, security-system salespersons who walk the premises identifying camera placements that involve climbing or measuring at height, and software-sales engineers who go on-site to install — all of these typically lose 8742 split for the operative hours.
Inside salespersons who work at a desk taking phone or web orders are not 8742. If their work is exclusively clerical and physically separated from operative hazards, they are 8810. If the role involves any product handling — pulling samples, packaging, demo of merchandise — they are absorbed into the governing classification.
8742 vs the Other Standard Exceptions and Common Misclassifications
The four NCCI Standard Exceptions are 8810 (Clerical Office Employees), 8871 (Clerical Telecommuter Employees), 8742 (Salespersons or Collectors — Outside), and 7380 (Drivers, Chauffeurs, Messengers and Their Helpers — Commercial). All four can be split out from the governing classification and rated separately, but the boundaries between them are strict. An outside sales rep whose primary role is calling on customers is 8742, even with a desk at the home office. A driver whose role is delivery — even if they pitch additional products on the route — is 7380 or governing, not 8742. A fully-remote inside salesperson taking phone orders from home is 8871 (telecommuter clerical), not 8742, because there is no outside solicitation.
The most common 8742 audit misclassification is "sales-plus-service" — the employee whose business card says "sales representative" but who in practice spends substantial time on installation, repair, or product demonstration involving operative hazards. Examples that fail 8742: an auto-parts outside sales rep who also delivers stock and helps load (absorbed into governing or 7380); a route salesperson for a beverage distributor who restocks customer coolers (governing); a security-system sales rep who climbs ladders to scope camera mounting (operative reassignment); a manufacturers' rep who installs sample equipment at trade shows (operative).
California's WCIRB Outside Salespersons classification reads more narrowly than NCCI's 8742, with stricter limits on incidental at-customer work and its own dual-wage rules. The independent-bureau states (NYCIRB, PCRB, DCRB, NJCRIB, ICRB, CAOM, NCRB) generally follow NCCI for 8742 but adopt their own Scopes text — always verify the local bureau before relying on a quoted rate. Misclassifying a California outside salesperson under the NCCI scope is a frequent source of audit penalties.
Sources
- NCRB Basic Manual, Rule 1 — Assignment of Classifications (Standard Exceptions, including 8742) (retrieved 2026-05-05)
- WCIRB California — Classification Search (8742 California scope) (retrieved 2026-05-05)
- Ohio Admin. Code 4123-17-08 — NCCI Manual Classifications (state-adopted Scopes text covering 8742) (retrieved 2026-05-05)
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