What to Send for a Workers' Comp EMR Verification

Updated September 15, 2026

You’ve decided to get your mod checked properly instead of guessing at what’s wrong with it. Before anyone can look at a single line, there’s a short list of documents to gather, and knowing what it is now means you’re not scrambling for paperwork once you’re ready to start.

The four things a verification actually checks

Your current experience rating worksheet. The bureau’s document showing the full calculation behind your workers’ comp EMR (experience modification rate): payroll by class code, every claim in the three-year window, and the math that turns those into your mod. This is the document a verification checks everything else against. Your agent or carrier has a copy, or can pull one directly if you don’t already have it.

Currently valued loss runs for the same three policy years the worksheet covers. Your carrier’s list of every claim, its status, and its current reserve. This is where you actually see whether a claim is priced accurately, since the worksheet shows what the bureau used, not what your claims file actually says today.

Declarations pages and payroll by class code, for the same three years. Your policy’s dec pages confirm the class codes and rates your carrier had on file, and your own payroll records by class code are what your reported payroll gets checked against. A mismatch between what you actually paid and what’s on the worksheet is one of the more common errors, and it’s invisible without your own payroll broken out the same way the worksheet reports it.

Any recent ownership change. If your business was sold, merged, restructured, or changed ownership in any way in the last several years, note it specifically. Ownership changes trigger a separate set of rules about whether a prior entity’s claims history follows into the current one, and a verification checks that separately from everything else on the worksheet.

Why all four, and not just the worksheet

The worksheet alone tells you what the bureau used. It doesn’t tell you whether what the bureau used was right. Checking that requires comparing the worksheet against the documents it was supposed to be built from, your actual claims and your actual payroll, line by line. Skip the loss runs and a stale reserve on an open claim goes unnoticed. Skip the payroll records and a misclassified crew’s wages keep measuring you against the wrong baseline. Each document catches something the others can’t.

If you don’t have one of these yet

Most contractors have some of this and not all of it. If you’re missing the worksheet or the loss runs, a short, specific email to your agent naming both documents is the fastest way to get them. Payroll by class code is usually sitting in your own bookkeeping or payroll system already, broken out by employee or crew even if not labeled by class code directly. Dec pages come from your policy documents or, again, your agent.

There’s no need to have everything gathered before you get on the waitlist. Getting familiar with the list now means less scrambling once a verification is ready to start.

If you operate under more than one entity or in more than one state

Some contractors bid under a holding structure with more than one legal entity, or run crews across state lines under a single policy. If that’s your situation, note it up front rather than assuming it’s obvious from the documents alone. Which entity a claim belongs to, and which state’s rules apply to a given class code or claim, both feed directly into whether your worksheet is built correctly, and a verification needs to know the structure to check it rather than guess at it from the paperwork.

What you don’t need to send

A verification isn’t a prequalification package, so it doesn’t need everything a GC’s prequal review checks. No safety questionnaire, no OSHA logs, no references, no financial statement. Just the four documents above, since those are the only ones the mod itself is actually built from. If you’re gathering paperwork for a bid at the same time, it’s worth keeping the two lists separate so you’re not hunting for a reference contact when all a verification actually needs is your worksheet and your numbers.

What happens with what you send

A verification is a plain-English, line-by-line comparison: every claim checked against its loss run entry, every payroll figure checked against your own records, every class code checked against your actual operations, and any ownership change checked against the combinability rules that apply to it. Findings come back within three business days of a complete set of documents. Either something’s wrong and you get exactly what to send your agent or carrier to fix it, or the worksheet checks out and you know your number is accurate instead of just hoping it is.

How your documents are handled

Anything you send carries claim details and payroll information, which is treated as sensitive from the moment it arrives. See the privacy policy for the specifics on how long anything is kept and who has access to it.

Getting started

If you haven’t run the numbers yet, the free EMR Cost & Bid Check calculator shows what your current mod is costing you against common bid thresholds in about a minute, no documents required. When you’re ready for the full check, get on the waitlist to be first in line. It’s a flat fee, no contingency, and the savings are yours.