What is a good experience mod for a restaurant?
Anything below 1.00. The experience mod compares a restaurant's workers' comp claims with what the rating bureau expects from a business with the same payroll in the same job classes. 1.00 is average, 1.15 means fifteen percent more premium than average on the same payroll, and 0.85 means fifteen percent less. It is recalculated every year from three years of claims, leaving out the year that just ended, and it is printed on the workers' comp policy.
How the number is calculated
The rating bureau takes three full years of the company's claims and compares them with the losses it expects from a company with that payroll in those job classes. The year that just ended is left out, because its claims are still too new to price. A restaurant gets a mod once its premium is large enough; in the national bureau's own example that is about $7,000 a year on average over two years, and the threshold varies by state.
The formula counts how often claims happen more heavily than how large they are. A steady run of small claims can move the number more than one serious injury. Open claims count at the amount the carrier has reserved for them, so a claim that closes for less than its reserve before the rating date brings the number down.
One number for the whole group
When the same people, or the same holding company, own more than half of each company, the rating bureau combines them and calculates one mod for all of them, even when each company has its own policy and its own carrier. The stated reason is that the owners are responsible for safety across every business they control. One store's claims raise the premium at every store.
The experience rating worksheet shows which company the claims came from, company by company. That is the page that answers which location is driving the group's workers' comp price. Most states use the national bureau's rule; the states with their own rating bureaus have similar ones, and four states run workers' comp through a state fund with rules of their own.
What moves it
Fewer claims, mostly. In restaurants, 51 percent of workers' comp claims come from employees in their first year, by Travelers' count of 1.2 million claims, so the stores hiring the most people are usually where the number is made. Bringing an injured employee back on modified duty keeps a claim shorter and smaller. And because the window is three years, a year with several claims stays in the number for three renewals before it rolls off.
Ask your agent for the experience rating worksheet and which location is driving the number. The workers' comp question on the insurance check is this page in one line. Payroll is the other half of the premium, and tips usually come out of it: Are tips included in workers' comp payroll?