How to Get Your Workers' Comp EMR Rating Worksheet

Updated September 15, 2026

You’ve asked your agent for “the mod paperwork” twice now. Once you got a one-line email confirming your current number. Once you got nothing. What you actually need has a specific name, comes from a specific place, and asking for it correctly is most of the battle.

The document you want is the experience rating worksheet

Your experience rating worksheet is the document that shows the full calculation behind your workers’ comp EMR (experience modification rate), not just the final number. Payroll by class code, every claim in the three-year window, and the math that turns those into your mod. If you want to know how that number was actually built, this is the document that shows it. A renewal letter or a certificate of insurance that just states your current mod isn’t the same thing, and asking for “my mod” instead of the worksheet by name is the most common reason contractors get the wrong document back.

Who actually holds it

The rating bureau, NCCI in most states, a state’s own independent bureau in a handful, calculates the worksheet and issues it to your carrier. Your agent normally has a copy, or can pull one directly from the carrier, because it’s part of the standard renewal file. If your agent says they don’t have it, that usually means nobody’s asked for it specifically, not that it doesn’t exist.

A small number of states run their own independent rating bureau instead of using NCCI, and the worksheet’s format can look slightly different depending on which one issued it. The structure and the information on it are the same either way: payroll, claims, and the math. If your agent isn’t sure which bureau applies to your state, that’s a fair question to ask directly, since it tells you who’s actually behind the number on your form.

If you work in more than one state

A contractor operating in several states can have more than one worksheet in play, since split points and the medical-only reduction are set per state even where NCCI issues the underlying calculation. If your crews work across state lines, ask your agent whether your rating is filed once, combined, or separately by state, so you know how many documents you’re actually requesting and which one covers the job you’re bidding.

What to actually say

Be specific about the document and the years. Ask for your current experience rating worksheet, and ask for the underlying policy years it covers so you know which three years of claims and payroll you’re checking. A vague request for “our mod information” tends to get a vague answer back, usually just the number restated. A request that names the document by name tends to get the actual worksheet. If you want the exact wording to send, the request that gets this moving is a short, specific email, and it works the same way whether you’re asking for the worksheet alone or the worksheet along with your loss runs.

What if your agent takes a while

Agents aren’t stalling out of nowhere. Pulling a worksheet sometimes means a request to the carrier, and carriers aren’t always fast, especially outside of renewal season when nobody else is asking. A week or two isn’t unusual. If it stretches past that with no update, a direct follow-up asking specifically whether the request has gone out to the carrier yet, rather than a general “any update,” tends to get things moving again. It’s a fair thing to be persistent about. This is your own data, not a favor.

If your agency has changed recently, or your policy moved to a new carrier at your last renewal, that’s often exactly when a worksheet request gets lost between two systems that haven’t fully synced up yet. Worth mentioning it explicitly if it applies, since it points your agent at the right place to look.

What if the number looks wrong before you even get the worksheet

Sometimes the reason you’re asking in the first place is that a mod you saw on a bid form or a renewal letter looks off, higher than you expected, or higher than what a GC told you it needs to be. That instinct is worth following, but the worksheet is what turns “this looks wrong” into something you can actually check. Without it, you’re arguing with a single number and no way to see what’s behind it.

Once you have it

The worksheet by itself doesn’t tell you if anything’s wrong. It tells you what the bureau used. The actual check happens when you put it next to your loss runs, the carrier’s list of your claims and their current values, and your own payroll records, line by line. Ten specific things worth checking cover most of what actually goes wrong: payroll that doesn’t match your books, a class code that doesn’t match your operations, a claim that should have closed, a reserve that’s stale.

Getting the worksheet is the first step, not the whole job. It’s also the one step you can’t skip, since nothing else in the process works without the actual document in front of you.

Getting help with the rest of it

Once you have your worksheet and your loss runs side by side, the free EMR Cost & Bid Check calculator shows what your current mod is costing you against common bid thresholds in about a minute. A full verification goes further: every claim, every reserve, every class code, checked against your source documents, with exactly what to send your agent or carrier for anything that’s wrong. It’s a flat fee, no contingency, and the savings are yours. Get on the waitlist to be first in line.