Summary: CSLB’s own records show State Fund insures most California roofers, and more than 600 roofing policies all renew on January 1. With new rates and a higher wage threshold in effect, a lot of roofers are about to overpay without knowing it.
Most of the time, nobody can tell you how an entire class of workers’ comp is insured. You get anecdotes, carrier talking points, maybe a survey. California roofing is the exception.
Roofers in California can’t opt out of comp. CSLB requires every active C-39 contractor to carry it whether or not they have employees, and the board publishes each license’s insurer and policy dates on its Public Data Portal. No exemptions means no gaps in the picture. If you hold a C-39, you’re in the file.
I pulled CSLB’s license, workers’ comp and personnel files on November 10 and matched them up. Here’s what came out.
The basic numbers
There are 5,816 C-39 licenses on CSLB’s current file. Of those, 5,443 (93.6%) have a comp policy that runs past November 10 with no cancellation on record. Another 424 get their coverage through a leasing firm or temp agency instead of their own policy.
Then there’s the group that should worry everyone: 373 roofers have no current policy on file at all, and 167 licenses are sitting in workers’ comp suspension right now.
One insurer, most of the market
Look only at roofers with their own policy, 5,028 of them, and 3,558 (70.8%) are with the State Compensation Insurance Fund. The next biggest insurer on file has 202 roofers. That’s 4%. Nobody else in the private market gets to 5%.
I understand why. Roofing is hard to write, a lot of carriers keep it at arm’s length, and State Fund exists so contractors can get covered. That’s its job and it does it.
The catch is what this does to a roofer at renewal. If State Fund is the only market that has ever quoted you, you have nothing to measure the renewal against. Is the increase the market moving, or is it one underwriter’s take on your file? Most roofers never find out.
Everybody renews at once
Roofing renewals don’t spread out evenly. 875 policies expire in January 2027, and 603 of them expire on January 1. That’s roughly one in nine roofers in the state, all on the same day. From December 1 through the end of February, 1,766 roofing policies come up, and about two-thirds of the insured ones are with State Fund.
That timing matters more than people think. A decent renewal takes current loss runs, a clean payroll split by class, and an underwriter who has time to actually look at it. A roofer who starts working on a January 1 renewal in mid-December is up against the holidays, a busy underwriting desk, and a license that gets suspended if coverage lapses. That’s not a strong position to negotiate from.
Why this year’s renewal is different
These policies all renew under the WCIRB advisory rates that took effect September 1, 2026. Two pieces hit roofers directly.
The statewide average advisory rate went up 6.6%, to $1.65 per $100 of payroll. That one gets the headlines. The bigger deal for roofers is the dual-wage line, which moved from $31.00 an hour to $33.00.
California splits roofing into two codes. 5552 is the low-wage code and 5553 is the high-wage code. The advisory rates are $20.827 per $100 of payroll for 5552 and $12.112 for 5553. Same roof, same crew, same risk, but the low-wage code costs about 72% more.
Here’s how that plays out. Say you’ve got six guys making $32.50 an hour, 2,000 hours each. That’s $390,000 in payroll. Last year they were over the $31.00 line and rated in 5553. This year $32.50 is under $33.00, so the whole crew drops into 5552. At advisory rates and a 1.00 mod, that’s about a $34,000 swing in premium. Bumping each of those six to $33.00 costs around $6,000 in wages.
Carrier rates won’t match the advisory numbers exactly, since every insurer files its own. But the gap between the two codes holds up because the loss data behind them is the same.
One more thing on payroll. If you can’t back up an hourly rate with time records, that payroll goes in the low-wage code. Sloppy records cost real money in this class.
What to do before January 1
- Start now. Sixty to ninety days out is the right window, and for a January 1 policy that window is already open.
- Get fresh loss runs. Underwriters want them valued within the last 90 days. Old open reserves that never got updated drag down both the mod and the quote.
- Look hard at anyone near $33.00. Make the raise decision before the policy starts, not when the auditor shows up.
- Check the mod worksheet. The WCIRB raised the experience rating eligibility threshold to $11,700 on September 1, so a small roofer’s rating status may have changed.
- Get a second quote. With seven in ten roofers on one insurer, it’s the only way to know whether the renewal number is fair.
- Don’t let it lapse. No comp, no license. Those 167 suspended roofers are proof.
How I got the numbers
Everything here comes from CSLB’s three public data files, pulled November 10, 2026. A license counts as C-39 if C39 is in its classification list. For 585 licenses where I couldn’t get the full license record, I took the classification from the personnel file, which matched the license file for 1,096 of the 1,101 licenses where I had both. A policy counts as current if it expires on or after November 10 and has no cancellation on or before that date. CSLB points out that license and insurance status can change any day, so treat this as a snapshot. Rate figures come from the WCIRB’s September 1, 2026 filing and are advisory. Insurers file their own rates.
About the author: Evan Swan founded CPR Business Solutions, a wholesale workers’ comp broker in Lake Wylie, South Carolina. CPR places hard-to-write accounts, California roofing among them, for agents and employers across the country. Disclosure: CPR places roofing workers’ comp and has no appointment or affiliation with any insurer named in this article. cprbrokers.com
