How Does State Residency Impact Your Business's Policy?

Workers move. As your team grows, you might find yourself hiring employees from all walks of life. It isn’t anything new. Still, it’s a good idea to prepare yourself. As you’re applying new workers compensation insurance policies, things like payroll taxes can impact your plan.

Employees from different states, and employees who move, can impact your policy’s rates. If you’re growing a new team, there are some things you should know.

First: Consider the Taxes

You’ll pay taxes in the states your employees work. There’s a twist, however: State laws differ from location to location. So, you’ll need to read up on different regulations. If your employees work in different states, you’ll need to account for their commutes to work.

In terms of resident states, you’ll need to consider each employee's permanent homes. Consider return address labels. Consider any reciprocal agreements between states.

Courtesy Payroll Withholding

Next, pick a policy which is friendly to payroll withholding. Make sure your team can process ongoing, off-cycle payrolls. It’s also a good idea to make sure you can manage bonus payrolls, too. There’s a chance you may have to change your business’s default settings—so as to set up autopilot payrolls to make things easier.

In most cases, you’ll have a withholding responsibility in each employee’s working state. As your business grows, employees will move. If your business is in Florida, for example, it’ll need to cater to remote workers in Georgia. In this case, you’ll withhold income taxes in Georgia.

The Location of Injury

Accidents happen. When picking a workers' compensation policy, you’ll need to consider self-insurance. Your policy may not cover employees who’re based in different locations. If it doesn’t, you’ll need to inform them about their personal insurance needs.

Plus, you might not have license coverage in all states. A lot of regional insurers do, however, cover a handful of states. Carriers may have difficulty asserting their coverage over these unlicensed states. If this is the case, it can be difficult to pay benefits in other states.

Securing Your Payroll

At the end of the day, your employee’s home state comes first. Once you get your tax information handled, however, the situation becomes less complex. Take the time needed to figure out your workers' compensation policy’s rates.

Make sure you can handle payroll concerns for remote employees, too. Employee contributions to health savings accounts, for example, may be tax deductible where federal income tax is concerned. Once you’ve figured out the basics, your workers compensation package will be much easier to handle.