Specific classification rules
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Construction or erection operations
The types of construction or erection operations you provide determine the classifications assigned to your business. Note that the system does not allow the assignment of a separate classification when the construction or erection operation is included in the scope of another classification.
In order to take advantage of multiple classes for your operations, you must maintain verifiable time records. If you do not maintain these records, your payroll will be allocated to the job classification that charges the most premium for that job or location.
Employee leasing firms, labor contractors, professional employer organizations, and temporary labor services
Classify workers assigned to clients as if they were employees of the client entity. Learn more about leased workers.
Farm operations
A farm is defined as any parcel or parcels of land used for the purpose of agriculture, horticulture, viticulture, dairying, or stock or poultry raising as a business or commercial venture.
Each farm classification includes operations "usual and incidental" to a farm, such as:
- Maintenance of cows, hogs, or chickens for family use;
- A family orchard or truck garden
- Hay or grain crops raised for the purpose of maintaining work animals on the farm
- Outside domestic workers
If you maintain verifiable payroll records, a division of payroll is allowed for each separate and distinct type of commercial farm operation.
If you do not maintain verifiable payroll records, you must segregate the entire payroll of the farm based on proportionate acreages.
Mercantile businesses
A classification is assigned separately for each location, based on the principal type of merchandise sold and whether the operations are wholesale or retail. (Principal means more than 50 percent of gross receipts.)
Repair operations
Shop operations which involve the repair of a product for which there is no repair classification are assigned to the classification that applies to the manufacture of the product.
Clerical office employees NOC (code 8810)
This classification does not include engineers or quality control persons unless their work meets the "Duties" and "Site" requirements below and they do not handle products or prototypes.
The clerical class is assigned when all the following conditions are met:
- The basic classification(s) wording applicable to the business does not include clerical office.
- The employee meets these duties, site requirements, and other requirements:
Duties
Duties must be limited to one or more of the following work activities:
- Creation or maintenance of employer records, correspondence, computer programs, or files
- Drafting
- Telephone duties, including telephone sales
- Data entry or word processing
- Copy or fax machine operations, unless the insured is in the business of making copies or faxing for the public
- General office work similar in nature to the above
Cashiering may be eligible for code 8810 if the employee does not:
- Handle, show, demonstrate, deliver, or have any other exposures to products
- Is not involved in retail customer service
Site requirements
- The duties above must take place in a work station that is separated from the following operative hazards: factories, stores, shops, construction sites, warehouses, and yards, or, any other work areas such as work or service areas, areas where inventory is located, areas where products are displayed for sale, or areas to which the purchaser customarily brings the product from another area for payment.
- Work stations or service areas as described above must be physically separated from the clerical work station by: floors, walls, partitions, counters, or other physical barriers that protect the clerical employee from the operating hazards of a business.
Other requirements
- Employees who otherwise meet the requirements for Code 8810 will not be disqualified from assignment to this classification if they perform certain incidental nonclerical duties directly related to that employee's duties in the office. These duties include depositing of funds in a bank, pickup or delivery of mail, purchase of office supplies, or entering an area exposed to the operative hazards of the business for clerical purposes, such as delivering paychecks.
- Employees who otherwise meet the requirements for Code 8810 will be disqualified from assignment to this classification if their duties involve:
- Outside sales or outside representatives
- Direct supervision performed outside of a qualified clerical area of nonclerical employees.
- Physical labor
- Any work exposed to the operative hazards of the business - such as a stock or tally clerk - that is necessary, incidental, or related to any operations of the business other than a clerical office
Miscellaneous employees
If a worker performs duties which are commonly conducted for separate operations subject to more than one basic classification, that worker must be assigned to the classification having the most payroll. These workers include general managers, general superintendents, safety, quality control, engineering, maintenance, janitorial, shipping and receiving, watchpersons, security, and warehouse or storeroom employees. Miscellaneous employees also include yard workers for all operations but construction and lumber yards.
Standard exception employees
This category includes occupations that are common to many businesses. The following workers are not included in a basic classification unless specified in the classification wording:
- Clerical office employees (class 8810) (See "Clerical office employees NOC")
- Drivers, chauffeurs, messengers, and their helpers (class 7380)
- Salespersons, estimators, or collectors-outside (class 8742)
If your principal business is described by one of the three standard exception classifications shown above, such as a bank or insurance company, then additional basic classifications would apply to the operations of all employees not included in the definition of the standard exception classification (i.e. janitorial, stores, printing, etc).
Supervisory employees
These workers are included in all basic classifications and are not separately classified. If supervisory workers interchange with office duties, their payroll may be divided between the basic classification and the Clerical Office (8810) classification, but the worker must maintain verifiable time records, and the duties must take place in a qualified clerical office.