Michigan Workers' Comp Insurance for Salons, Barbershops & Spas

Michigan's threshold has two paths: a private employer must carry coverage if it regularly employs one or more workers who work 35 or more hours per week for 13 or more consecutive weeks, or if it has three or more employees at any time regardless of hours. Agricultural employers follow the 35-hour/13-week test with three or more employees, and household employers must cover domestic workers who work 35+ hours per week for 13+ weeks. All public employers must carry coverage regardless of size. See the Workers' Disability Compensation Agency's insurance requirements page.

Common codes for this work include 9586 Barber Shop / Beauty Salon; 8810 Clerical Office Employees; 8017 Retail Store (General). Michigan maintains its own classification system (CAOM) rather than NCCI codes. The codes below are NCCI reference codes; your Michigan classification may carry a different number, and we match it during quoting.

A sole proprietor is never considered an employee of their own business, so they are not automatically covered and coverage on themselves is optional. Partners are considered employees of the partnership, corporate officers are considered employees of the corporation, and LLC manager-members are considered employees of the LLC, meaning all three groups are counted toward the coverage threshold and are covered by default unless they properly file an exclusion form. Employers can meet the coverage requirement by purchasing insurance, self-insuring, or filing a valid exclusion, and should keep exclusion paperwork current since it's specific to the individual and the entity.

Michigan's Worker's Disability Compensation Act makes it a misdemeanor for a covered employer to fail to secure required coverage, and the state can pursue both criminal prosecution and civil remedies to collect owed compensation and penalties from a noncompliant employer (MCL 418.641). An uninsured employer also loses the liability protections the Act normally provides and can be sued directly and held personally liable for a workplace injury.

Price is driven by payroll in each class code, the Michigan rates filed for those codes, your claims history (experience modification), and underwriting factors such as total employee payroll, separate from any independent booth renters; mix of chemical services (color, perms) versus cuts and styling only; whether the salon operates a separate retail product counter. We compare carriers so you can see what you qualify for.

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Not if they're properly classified as independent contractors rather than employees, but that classification needs to be genuine and well-documented, since misclassifying someone who's functionally an employee can create coverage and compliance problems.

It can — if a meaningful, separately tracked retail counter is part of the business, that portion of payroll may be considered under a retail store classification rather than the personal-care classification.

Generally yes, since the barbershop, beauty parlor, and hair-styling salon classification is built to cover related personal-care services together rather than splitting out each specialty separately.

Coverage is required once an employer has three or more employees at any time, or one or more employees working 35+ hours per week for 13 or more consecutive weeks, whichever applies first.

No. A sole proprietor is never considered an employee of their own business, so coverage on the owner is optional, though employees they hire still count toward the threshold.