Insurance for dental offices

Dental offices log 1.4 recordable injuries and illnesses per 100 full-time workers — 39 percent below private industry's 2.3 and number 50 of 54 trades here. The injury record is not the hard part of insuring this trade; the liability and contract requirements are.

Tailor the checklist

1Dental offices 1.4 per 100
2Private industry 2.3 per 100
3Rank of 54 #50

Total recordable cases per 100 full-time workers, 2024: this trade against private industry and the 54 trades on this site. Bars to scale. Source: BLS SOII Table 1.

Recordable cases

1.4

per 100 FTE, 2024

Serious cases (DART)

0.2

14% of all cases

Fatal injuries, 2024

≈0.3 per 100,000 FTE

Workforce

776,153

full-time equivalents

What goes wrong in this trade

Malpractice claims over treatment, patient records that make a data breach costly, and slips in the office.

The checklist for dental offices

E&O
Professional liability (E&O)
Dental malpractice; many hospitals and plans require proof of it.
Not required by federal law; some state licences and client contracts require it.
GL
General liability
Patient slips and premises claims.
Not required by federal law. Required in practice by most contracts, landlords and many state contractor licences.
WC
Workers' compensation
Required once you have employees in nearly every state.
Required by state law in nearly every state once you have employees; the employee-count threshold and exemptions are set state by state and are not reproduced here.
Cyber
Cyber liability
Patient health and payment records.
Not required by law; required by some health-care and corporate contracts.
Abuse
Abuse and molestation liability
Practices treating children face abuse allegations that general forms exclude.
Not required by law; often required by state licensing or clients for care providers.

Red tags mark policy types that a law or licence usually requires; green tags are what contracts, landlords and clients ask for. Tailor the list for your situation (no employees, no vehicles, alcohol) with the checklist tool.

What the injury record means for the premium

Dental offices: total recordable cases, cases with days away/restriction/transfer (DART) and cases with days away from work, per 100 FTE, 2024, columns to scale.

With 1.4 cases per 100 workers the workers' compensation base rate for this class is comparatively modest, and only 14 percent of cases involved days away, restriction or transfer. Where the premium goes instead is liability: dental malpractice; many hospitals and plans require proof of it, and that is a general-liability and professional-liability question rather than a payroll one. Expect the certificate requirements in your contracts to matter more than your loss history.

The nearest trades by injury rate are security and alarm installers (1.4), bars and taverns (1.3), site preparation (excavation) contractors (1.5); the same payroll insured in those classes would start from a similar workers' comp base.

Legal, licence or contract?

Fixed by law

Workers' compensation once you have employees, in nearly every state (threshold and exemptions set by the state; not reproduced here).
State minimum auto liability on any vehicle the business operates.

Asked for by contracts and licences

Getting quotes. Take this checklist to a broker who writes dental offices — ask them to quote each line separately so you can see what the 1.4-per-100 class rate is doing to the workers' comp figure versus the liability lines. This site does not sell or quote insurance.

Sources: BLS Survey of Occupational Injuries and Illnesses, Table 1 (2024), incidence rates per 100 full-time workers; BLS SOII Table 3 (2024), hours worked by detailed industry; BLS Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries, Table A-1 (2024). Fatal rate per 100,000 FTE is derived (count ÷ hours × 200,000,000) and approximate. Checked 2026-10-24.