Kentucky Workers' Comp Insurance for Medical & Dental Offices

Kentucky requires employers with one or more employees to obtain and maintain workers' compensation coverage, unless specifically authorized by the Commissioner to self-insure. Family members, temporary workers, and part-time workers all count as employees for this purpose, so there is effectively no small-employer exemption. See the Education and Labor Cabinet's employer FAQ.

Common codes for this work include 8832 Physician Office; 8810 Clerical Office Employees; 8871 Clerical Telecommuter Employees. Kentucky uses NCCI class codes, so the codes below are the ones carriers typically assign to this work in Kentucky.

Corporate officers are automatically included in coverage by default and can only be excluded by affirmatively filing Form 4 with the Kentucky Department of Workers' Claims. For officers who remain covered, Kentucky applies NCCI-based minimum and maximum payroll figures used to calculate their premium basis (for 2026, included officer payroll is assigned between a $57,200 minimum and a $234,000 maximum). Sole proprietors, partners, and LLC members are treated differently from corporate officers and generally are not automatically counted or covered, but can typically elect to be included in the business's policy if they want coverage; confirming the current election paperwork with a carrier is recommended given how entity-specific these rules are.

An employer operating without required coverage faces fines of $100 to $1,000 for each employee, for each day the business goes without coverage. If Kentucky's Uninsured Employers' Fund pays benefits to an injured worker at a noncompliant employer, that employer must reimburse the Fund and can face legal action for collection. An uninsured employer also loses the workers' compensation law's exclusive-remedy protection, opening it up to a direct employee lawsuit that can include pain-and-suffering and punitive damages. Separately, deducting insurance premiums from an employee's wages brings its own fine of $100 to $1,000 per violation.

Price is driven by payroll in each class code, the Kentucky rates filed for those codes, your claims history (experience modification), and underwriting factors such as split between clinical staff and clerical/administrative staff; whether the practice has a genuinely separated administrative office; sharps-handling and bloodborne-pathogen exposure control practices. We compare carriers so you can see what you qualify for.

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Usually yes, under the physician-office classification, since most practices don't physically separate administrative work enough to qualify for a lower clerical rate — though a genuinely separate billing office may be able to report payroll under a standard clerical exception.

In the absence of a dedicated dental classification, dental offices are generally rated under the same physician-office code that covers outpatient clinical and clerical staff together.

Workers' comp covers injuries to the practice's own employees; malpractice or professional liability covers claims from patients over the care provided. They're separate policies that address different risks and are typically carried alongside each other.

Yes. Kentucky counts family members, temporary workers, and part-time workers as employees, so coverage is generally required as soon as a business has any employee at all.

Yes, but only by filing Form 4 with the Department of Workers' Claims; officers are covered by default until that exclusion is on file.