Wyoming Workers Compensation Rules for Employers
Wyoming workers compensation for employers: who needs state fund coverage, who is excluded, injury reporting deadlines, penalties, and the liability gap.
Wyoming Workers’ Compensation
State fund coverage, who is excluded, the reporting clock, and the employer’s liability gap
The first time I helped set up a Wyoming crew, the owner called his insurance agent for a workers compensation quote and the agent told him he could not sell one. Not that the price was ugly, not that the class code was awkward. No private carrier writes that policy for Wyoming work at all.
Wyoming is one of four states that run a monopolistic workers compensation fund, and it takes the idea further than the other three. That single design choice reshapes everything downstream: where you register, who you call, what the coverage quietly leaves out, and what the state does to you if you skip it.
This page is Wyoming only. How the system works in general, from experience mods to return to work, sits in our guide to workers compensation insurance. The rest of the state picture, including hiring and pay rules, lives in the Wyoming HR compliance guide.
Who Needs Coverage in Wyoming
There is no employee threshold in Wyoming. Coverage is mandatory from the first employee when the work falls in an extrahazardous classification, and optional when it does not. The test is what your business does, not how many people do it.
W.S. 27-14-108(a)(ii) lists the extrahazardous work by NAICS sector, subsector and industry group. The list is broader than the phrase suggests. Mining, utilities, construction and manufacturing are covered in full, and so is accommodation and food services, which means a restaurant with two cooks is mandatory coverage in Wyoming. Arts, entertainment and recreation is covered too, apart from a narrow exception the department may grant when a business earns most of its revenue from agriculture.
Other sectors are carved up piece by piece. Logging is mandatory while crop and animal production are not. Ambulatory health care, hospitals and nursing facilities are mandatory while most professional offices are not. Truck transportation, warehousing, gasoline stations, motor vehicle dealers, waste management, repair and maintenance, and services to buildings and dwellings all sit on the mandatory side. The full enumeration runs for several pages of the legislature's Title 27 compilation.
The classifications move. W.S. 27-14-108(a)(ii) points at the most recent edition of the NAICS manual, so a code that read as optional under an older edition can land on the mandatory list after an update. That is one reason the Division, not the employer, makes the call.
| Your situation | Coverage status | What you have to do |
|---|---|---|
| Any employee working in a NAICS class listed in W.S. 27-14-108(a) | Mandatory from the first employee | Register and hold a statement of coverage before work starts |
| NAICS class not listed in the statute | Optional under W.S. 27-14-108(j) | Register anyway so the Division can classify you |
| Optional employer that elects state fund coverage | Covered on the same terms | Elect for all employees, and stay in for at least two years |
| Owner, partner, corporate officer or LLC member | Excluded unless elected | File a written election under W.S. 27-14-108(k) |
| Out of state employer sending crews into Wyoming | Same NAICS test applies | Register before starting work, plus advance premium deposit or surety bond |
| Business with no employees yet | Nothing to insure | Register when you hire, before the first day of work |
Electing optional coverage is an all or nothing move. W.S. 27-14-108(j) lets an employer outside the mandatory list opt in, but only for every employee, and the election has to stay in place for at least two years before it can be withdrawn. Wyoming does not offer a middle setting where you insure the warehouse and leave the office out.
Who Wyoming Leaves Out
Wyoming excludes people by category rather than by counting them. The definition of employee in W.S. 27-14-102(a)(vii) ends with a list of who it does not include, and that list is where most of the surprises live.
| Category | How Wyoming treats it | Authority |
|---|---|---|
| Sole proprietor or partner in a partnership | Excluded unless coverage is elected | 27-14-102(a)(vii)(B) |
| Corporate officer | Excluded unless coverage is elected | 27-14-102(a)(vii)(C) |
| Limited liability company member | Excluded unless coverage is elected | 27-14-102(a)(vii)(P) |
| Independent contractor | Excluded, under a three part statutory test | 27-14-102(a)(vii)(D) |
| Casual labor | Excluded, defined as under two consecutive weeks and outside the normal course of business | 27-14-102(a)(vii)(A) |
| Employee of a private household | Excluded outright, with no election route | 27-14-102(a)(vii)(G) |
| Spouse or dependent of the employer living in the household | Excluded | 27-14-102(a)(vii)(E) |
| Agricultural labor | Crop and animal production sit outside the mandatory list; logging does not | 27-14-108(a)(ii)(A) |
| Private duty nurse engaged by a private party | Excluded | 27-14-102(a)(vii)(H) |
| Volunteer | Excluded unless covered as a listed public safety volunteer | 27-14-102(a)(vii)(K) |
| Federal employee | Excluded from the state act | 27-14-102(a)(vii)(J) |
| Owner operator leased with driver to a for hire carrier | Excluded if the contract also treats them as a non employee for FICA, FUTA and withholding | 27-14-102(a)(vii)(O) |
| Licensed real estate broker, associate broker or salesperson | Excluded for commission based licensed services | 27-14-102(a)(vii)(S) |
| Foster parent for the Department of Family Services | Excluded | 27-14-102(a)(vii)(Q) |
| Elected official or appointed board member | Excluded, except county officers and legislators | 27-14-102(a)(vii)(N) |
Two of those definitions are tighter than the everyday meaning of the words. Casual labor in W.S. 27-14-102(a)(xxiv) means service of less than two consecutive weeks that is also outside your normal course of business, so a second week of the same seasonal help does not qualify. Independent contractor status needs all three of freedom from control by contract and in fact, holding out to the public as self employed, and the right to substitute another person to do the work.
That three part test is the one that gets employers into trouble, because it is stricter than the tax rules people are used to. If the classification fails, the state fund treats the worker as your employee and the premium was owed all along. Our guide to worker misclassification covers how the same call plays out federally.
Owners who want to be covered have a form and a calendar to respect. Under W.S. 27-14-108(k), a corporation, LLC, partnership or sole proprietorship elects coverage for its officers, members, partners or proprietor by written notice at initial registration or 30 days before a calendar quarter begins. Electing for owners drags in any uncovered employees at the same time, and the election locks for eight calendar quarters.
Where a Wyoming Policy Comes From
There is one seller. Mandatory workers compensation coverage in Wyoming comes from the state fund administered by the Workers' Compensation Division of the Department of Workforce Services, and from nothing else. Private workers compensation policies are not sold for extrahazardous Wyoming work, and the Division put it in one line for the Joint Labor, Health and Social Services Committee: all required NAICS codes must have coverage through the state fund.
Self insurance is not an alternative either. The same Division briefing states that Wyoming has no statutory provision for self insurance regulation or enforcement, and nothing in the Act creates a qualifying process, a security deposit or a financial test for it. Where Ohio and Washington let large employers self insure, Wyoming simply does not have the mechanism.
The exception sits entirely on the optional side. Because an employer outside the enumerated NAICS codes is not subject to the mandate, what it does about coverage is its own choice. The Wyoming Department of Insurance describes the state fund as the primary provider and confirms that exempt employers may buy workers compensation from private insurers on the open market, with the Department regulating those insurers.
Pricing works differently from a private market too, because there is no quote to shop. Under W.S. 27-14-201 the Division divides employment into classes, readjusts the rates annually on an actuarial basis, and applies an experience modification built from your own three year claim history. Discount programs for safety, for drug and alcohol testing and for a premium deductible can move the number further.
Base rates are set on a public calendar. W.S. 27-14-201(c) requires the department to submit proposed annual rate adjustments to the joint labor, health and social services interim committee no later than October 1 of the year before they take effect, so the coming year's rate change is visible in the autumn.
Reporting and payment follow the payroll rather than a policy anniversary. W.S. 27-14-202(a) requires a certified payroll report and payment on or before the last day of the month following the month in which the earnings were paid, with quarterly reporting available at the director's discretion for employers with a clean payment history.
Employers based elsewhere get one extra step. W.S. 27-14-302 requires a nonresident employer to register before starting work in Wyoming and to either pay an advance premium deposit or file a surety bond approved by the director, unless an extraterritorial certificate of coverage waives the requirement. Wyoming also refuses to let a contract be awarded to a nonresident employer until the required contributions are paid.
The Employer's Liability Gap
The state fund pays statutory benefits and nothing more. It is not the two part commercial policy sold in other states, so there is no Employer's Liability section sitting behind it to defend and pay when someone sues you over a workplace injury. In Wyoming that protection has to be bought separately.
The mechanism has a name worth using with your agent: a stop gap employer's liability endorsement, added to your commercial general liability policy by a private insurer. Ask for it by that name. A general liability policy on its own excludes bodily injury to employees, which means without the endorsement there is nothing behind that category of claim at all.
The gap widens for anyone outside the definition of employee. If a worker is excluded, or if an optional employer never elected coverage, there is no statutory claim to be the exclusive remedy in the first place. What is left is an ordinary negligence suit, and that is precisely the exposure a stop gap endorsement is built for.
FirstHR is not an insurer or a broker, so this is not a product I can sell you. It is the single item Wyoming employers most often discover after a claim rather than before one, which is why it belongs on the list you take to your insurance agent this month.
Posters and What a New Hire Gets
Wyoming asks for one posting and one document kept on site. W.S. 27-14-507 requires each employer to keep posted in a conspicuous place for employees a notice furnished by the Division, containing a brief summary of the Act and the procedures for filing claims, and to keep a copy of the Act itself available for all employees.
The Department of Workforce Services supplies that notice inside its Wyoming labor law poster set, alongside the state minimum wage, unemployment insurance and occupational safety notices. The posters are free from the agency and from its workforce centers around the state, so an invoice arriving in the mail for a compliance poster is a sales pitch rather than a deadline. Our overview of workplace safety posters covers the federal set that hangs next to it.
On the new hire question, be careful with advice imported from other states. Wyoming's Act sets no requirement to hand a workers compensation pamphlet, brochure or written notice to an employee at hire. The obligation stops at the wall posting and the available copy of the Act. The Division publishes an Employers Guide to Reporting an Employee Injury as a resource, not as a mandated handout.
Injury Reporting Deadlines
Two clocks run at once, and they start at different moments. The employee has 72 hours to tell you, then 10 days to file a report. You have 10 days from the moment you were notified to file the employer's report with the Division.
| Who | What is due | Deadline | Authority |
|---|---|---|---|
| Employee to employer | Report the occurrence and general nature of the accident, in writing or another approved form | As soon as practical, no later than 72 hours after the general nature of the injury became apparent | 27-14-502(a) |
| Employee to employer and Division | File the injury report itself | Within 10 days after the injury became apparent | 27-14-502(a) |
| Employer to employee | Acknowledge a written injury report in writing on the report or a copy | On receipt | 27-14-502(b) |
| Employer to Division | Certified employer’s injury report, stating whether the injury is compensable | Within 10 days after being notified of the injury | 27-14-506(a) |
| Employer to employee | Mail or deliver a copy of the employer’s injury report | With the filing | 27-14-506(a) |
| Division | Initial review of entitlement to benefits | Within 15 days after the injury report or claim is filed | 27-14-601(k)(i) |
| Any interested party | Written request for a hearing on a final determination | Within 15 days after the notice was mailed | 27-14-601(k)(iv) |
| Employee | Claim for benefits, single incident injury | Within one year of the injury or of discovery | 27-14-503(a) |
| Employee | Claim for benefits, injury developing over time | Within one year of diagnosis or three years from last exposure, whichever is later | 27-14-503(b) |
| Employer to Division | Certified payroll report and premium payment | Last day of the month following the month earnings were paid | 27-14-202(a) |
Missing the employee side of that schedule carries a specific consequence. W.S. 27-14-502(c) makes a failure to report to the employer and file the injury report a presumption that the claim shall be denied, rebuttable only by clear and convincing evidence that neither the employer nor the Division was prejudiced in investigating the injury and monitoring treatment.
Your own report has a criminal edge to it. Willful failure or gross negligence in reporting an occurrence that injured an employee is a misdemeanor under W.S. 27-14-506(c), punishable by a fine of up to $750, imprisonment for up to six months, or both.
Penalties for Going Without Coverage
Wyoming comes after the money first and the criminal record second, and the money side has no ceiling. An uninsured employer whose worker is awarded benefits owes the state the full value of that award.
| Exposure | What it means in practice | Authority |
|---|---|---|
| Full cost of the claim | An employer that never applied for coverage, or that is over 30 days late on payments, is liable to the state for an amount equal to all awards paid and reserved for that employee, recovered by civil action in the director’s name | 27-14-203(a) |
| Interest on late premium | 1 percent per month, or any fraction of a month, from the due date until payment plus interest is received | 27-14-203(c) |
| Lien on your property | The director may file a lien covering all real and personal property of the employer in any county where it is filed | 27-14-203(e) |
| Injunction against operating | The director may have the business enjoined, in whole or in part, from operating until payments are made and the employer complies | 27-14-203(f) |
| Delinquent payroll report | $100 for each delinquent report, on top of any delinquent premium penalty | 27-14-202(j) |
| Loss of exclusive remedy | The employee keeps the right to sue the employer for damages instead of taking capped statutory benefits | 27-14-104(c) |
| Criminal, no account or no payroll report | Knowingly failing to establish an account or furnish a payroll report is a misdemeanor up to $750 and six months for a first conviction, and a felony up to $10,000 and ten years for a second or later one | 27-14-510(d) |
| Criminal, false payroll statement | Understating payroll to cut premium is a misdemeanor below $500 avoided, and a felony up to $10,000 and ten years at $500 or more | 27-14-510(b) |
| Nonresident bond failure | Willful failure by a nonresident employer to post the required bond is a misdemeanor up to $5,000, one year, or both | 27-14-307 |
One provision closes the escape route people hope for. W.S. 27-14-601(g) says no claim for benefits shall be denied based solely on the employer's failure to comply with the Act. The injured worker is paid either way, and the Division then turns to the employer for the cost.
Notice what the injunction in W.S. 27-14-203(f) actually is. Wyoming does not issue an administrative stop work order the way some states do. The director asks a court to enjoin the business from operating, in whole or in part, until the employer is current and compliant. The effect on a construction schedule is the same.
What to Do When Someone Gets Hurt
Work the sequence in order, because the deadlines that matter start on the day you were notified rather than the day the paperwork was convenient.
The Report of Injury reaches the Division by mail, email or fax, and the current addresses are published on the DWS report an injury page. Note that the Act contains no separate anti retaliation section of its own, which is not permission to act against a worker who reports. The general employment law analysis is in the state guide.
Keeping the safety and reporting side of this organized is ordinary operations work, not legal work. Written procedures, acknowledgments and a clear owner for the form beat a scramble on day nine. For the federal layer that sits over all of it, see our guide to OSHA requirements for employers.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does a Wyoming small business need workers compensation insurance?
That depends on your industry rather than your headcount, because Wyoming sets no employee threshold. Coverage is mandatory from the first employee when the work falls in one of the extrahazardous classes listed by NAICS code in W.S. 27-14-108(a)(ii), which sweeps in mining, utilities, construction, manufacturing, logging, accommodation and food services and most health care. Outside that list, state fund coverage is optional under W.S. 27-14-108(j). Registration is mandatory in both cases.
Can I buy Wyoming workers compensation from a private insurer?
Not for mandatory coverage. The Division told the Joint Labor, Health and Social Services Committee that all required NAICS codes must have coverage through the state fund, and the same briefing confirms Wyoming has no statutory provision for self insurance regulation or enforcement. The optional side is different: the Wyoming Department of Insurance states that exempt employers may buy workers compensation from private insurers on the open market, and it regulates those insurers.
Are corporate officers, LLC members and sole proprietors covered?
Not automatically. W.S. 27-14-102(a)(vii) leaves sole proprietors, partners, corporate officers and LLC members out of the definition of employee unless coverage is elected under W.S. 27-14-108(k). The election is a written notice to the Division at initial registration or 30 days before a calendar quarter starts. It pulls in any uncovered employees at the same time, and it cannot be withdrawn for eight calendar quarters.
How fast does a Wyoming workplace injury have to be reported?
The employee has 72 hours to report the occurrence and general nature of the accident to you, measured from when the general nature of the injury became apparent, plus 10 days to file the injury report with you and the Division under W.S. 27-14-502(a). You then have 10 days from being notified to file a certified employer's report and send the employee a copy, under W.S. 27-14-506(a). The claim for benefits itself carries a one year limit.
What happens to a Wyoming employer with no coverage?
The civil bill comes first and it is uncapped. W.S. 27-14-203(a) makes an employer that never applied for coverage, or that is more than 30 days late on payments, liable to the state for an amount equal to every award paid and reserved for that employee. Add 1 percent monthly interest, a lien on all real and personal property, and a court injunction against operating. W.S. 27-14-104(c) also strips exclusive remedy, so the employee can sue.
Does the Wyoming state fund include employer's liability coverage?
No. The fund pays the statutory benefits in the Act and stops there, so there is no Employer's Liability part behind it. Wyoming employers close the gap with a stop gap employer's liability endorsement on a commercial general liability policy from a private insurer, because that policy on its own excludes bodily injury to employees. The exclusive remedy in W.S. 27-14-104(a) reaches only employers making the contributions the Act requires.
Do I still register with DWS if my industry is optional?
Yes. W.S. 27-14-207(a) bars an employer subject to the Act from commencing business or engaging in work in Wyoming without applying for coverage and receiving a statement of coverage. The Department of Workforce Services applies that to everyone, because registration is what lets the Division assign your NAICS classification and decide whether you are mandatory, optional or non liable. Out of state employers also post an advance premium deposit or a surety bond unless a certificate waives it.
Pay rules and the rest of the state picture sit alongside this one. See the Wyoming minimum wage page for the wage floor, and the state compliance guide for everything else an employer here has to hold.