Ten Worksheet Errors That Inflate Your Contractor EMR

Updated September 12, 2026

Your worksheet came from your agent, your agent got it from the carrier, and the carrier’s number came from whoever entered the data. Three people removed from you, and nobody checked it against your own records. Here’s what actually goes wrong, and what to ask for when it does.

Your workers’ comp EMR (experience modification rate) is covered in full in what an EMR is. This is the checklist version: ten specific errors, what each one looks like on the page, and the one line to send your agent or carrier.

1. Payroll doesn’t match what you actually paid

What it looks like: the payroll listed for a class code on your worksheet doesn’t match your actual payroll records for that code and period.

Why it happens: an audit correction never made it into the rating, or the number was entered wrong at the carrier and nobody compared it back to your books.

Send this: “Please confirm the payroll by class code used in my current experience rating worksheet against my final audited payroll for each of the three policy years shown.”

2. The class code doesn’t match the actual work

What it looks like: payroll for one crew or operation is sitting under a class code that describes different work.

Why it happens: a code gets assigned once, often years ago, and nobody revisits it as your operations shift. A framing crew coded as general carpentry is a common version of this.

Send this: “Please review whether the class codes on my worksheet match my current scope of operations, and correct any that don’t.”

3. A closed claim still shows as open

What it looks like: a claim you know is finished, medical treatment done, no more payments expected, is still listed with open status and an active reserve.

Why it happens: closing a claim in the carrier’s system is a manual step. If nobody follows up after the last payment, the file just sits open.

Send this: “Please confirm the current status of this claim number and close it in your system if it’s no longer active.”

4. An open claim’s reserve hasn’t been updated in years

What it looks like: a claim has been open a long time, the reserve is a round number that hasn’t changed since early in the claim, and nothing about the injury suggests it should still cost that much.

Why it happens: reserves get set early, based on limited information, and updating them requires someone to actively review the file. Without a trigger, they sit.

Send this: “Please review and update the reserve on this claim to reflect its current status and expected remaining cost.”

5. A medical-only claim is valued like a lost-time claim

What it looks like: a claim with no missed work and no indemnity payments is counted on your worksheet at full value, with no reduction applied.

Why it happens: many states apply a reduced weight to medical-only claims (ones with treatment but no lost time) in the experience rating calculation. Whether and how it applies depends on your state’s plan, and it’s easy for it to get missed if nobody’s specifically checking for it.

Send this: “Please confirm whether the medical-only reduction under my state’s experience rating plan was applied to this claim, and if not, why.”

6. The per-accident limitation was applied at the wrong amount

What it looks like: a large claim is capped under your state’s per-accident limitation, but the amount used looks off, or a single accident that generated more than one claim wasn’t grouped together under one limitation.

Why it happens: NCCI applies the cap automatically inside the formula, but the limitation amount can be outdated after a carrier switch or a state’s periodic update, and multi-claim accidents sometimes get entered as separate, unlinked claims instead of one grouped accident.

Send this: “Please confirm the per-accident limitation amount applied to this claim, and whether any other claims from the same accident were grouped under it.”

7. A claim belongs to a different entity

What it looks like: a claim on your worksheet happened under a different but related company, a prior ownership structure, or an entity you no longer operate under, and it’s being carried into your current rating.

Why it happens: after a sale, merger, or restructuring, the rules for whether a prior entity’s history follows the new one (combinability) are easy to apply incorrectly, especially when the transaction wasn’t handled by a rating specialist.

Send this: “Please confirm that every claim on my worksheet belongs to my current legal entity under the applicable combinability rules.”

8. A claim you know was resolved through subrogation still counts at full value

What it looks like: a claim where a third party was found responsible and the carrier recovered costs from them still appears on your worksheet at its original value, with no adjustment.

Why it happens: subrogation recoveries happen on a separate track from the experience rating data feed, and the two don’t always get reconciled.

Send this: “Please confirm whether any subrogation recovery on this claim has been reflected in the value used for experience rating.”

9. The worksheet is using the wrong three years

What it looks like: the policy years shown on your worksheet don’t match what you’d expect given the one-year lag (the rating skips the year that just ended and uses the three before it).

Why it happens: this is rarer than the others, but it happens during carrier transitions or when a rating is recalculated after a dispute, and an old year gets left in or a current one gets left out.

Send this: “Please confirm the three policy years used in this experience rating are correct given the standard one-year lag.”

10. The same claim appears twice

What it looks like: two line items on the worksheet with different claim numbers, but matching or near-matching dates, injury descriptions, and dollar amounts.

Why it happens: this shows up most often after a carrier switch, when a claim gets re-entered in a new system without the old entry being removed, or when a claim was reported to two different policies by mistake.

Send this: “Please review these two claim numbers for duplication and remove the incorrect entry if they refer to the same claim.”

Where this goes from here

None of these ten fix themselves, and none of them are visible from the mod number alone. You have to put the worksheet next to your own loss runs and payroll records, line by line, to find them.

That comparison is the entire job of a full worksheet verification: check every claim, every reserve, every class code, every payroll figure, against your source documents, and hand you the specific request to send for each one you find. It’s a flat fee, no contingency, and the savings are yours. Run your numbers through the free EMR Cost & Bid Check calculator first, or get on the waitlist for the full review.