Insurance for engineering firms

Engineering firms log 0.5 recordable injuries and illnesses per 100 full-time workers — 78 percent below private industry's 2.3 and number 53 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

1Engineering firms 0.5 per 100
2Private industry 2.3 per 100
3Rank of 54 #53

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

0.5

per 100 FTE, 2024

Serious cases (DART)

0.2

40% of all cases

Fatal injuries, 2024

≈0.7 per 100,000 FTE

Workforce

1,118,856

full-time equivalents

What goes wrong in this trade

Design and calculation errors behind failures or delays, inspection claims, and field injuries for staff on construction sites.

The checklist for engineering firms

E&O
Professional liability (E&O)
Errors in design, calculations or inspections; clients and public contracts require it.
Not required by federal law; some state licences and client contracts require it.
GL
General liability
Field work 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.
Auto
Commercial auto liability
Survey and inspection vehicles.
State minimum auto liability applies to business vehicles. Interstate for-hire carriers of vehicles 10,001 lb GVWR and up must carry the 49 CFR 387.9 minimums ($750,000 non-hazardous property; $1,000,000 oil; $5,000,000 bulk hazmat).
Cyber
Cyber liability
Project data and client systems.
Not required by law; required by some health-care and corporate contracts.
Umbrella
Commercial umbrella / excess
Large projects ask for higher limits.
Not required by law; required by many general contractors and commercial landlords.

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

Engineering firms: 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 0.5 cases per 100 workers the workers' compensation base rate for this class is comparatively modest, and only 40 percent of cases involved days away, restriction or transfer. Where the premium goes instead is liability: errors in design, calculations or inspections; clients and public contracts require 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 photographers (0.6), architects (0.3), bars and taverns (1.3); 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 engineering firms — ask them to quote each line separately so you can see what the 0.5-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.