Ask any small business owner about their annual workers’ compensation insurance audit and you’ll likely hear a sigh. The process is famously tedious and can be costly, primarily because many employers assume that their standard “gross payroll” is the amount insurance auditors use to calculate premiums. In reality, insurance carriers calculate your premium based on a highly-specific legal metric called remuneration, money or substitutes for money given to an employee for their services. While the National Council on Compensation Insurance (NCCI) sets standard guidelines for what counts as remuneration across most of the country, states love to write their own…
