Net rate (workers compensation)
A net rate is the single all-in workers compensation price a PEO quotes per $100 of payroll for a class code, with the PEO’s costs and any discounts already blended in.
Outside a PEO, workers compensation pricing is built up from parts you can inspect: a published rate for each class code, times your experience mod, plus or minus scheduled credits and surcharges. A PEO net rate collapses all of that into one number per class code. The number may be genuinely lower than your standalone pricing, especially for a high-mod employer entering a large program, but it is not decomposable from the outside, and that is the point to manage.
Ask what is inside the net rate: the underlying manual rate, whether your experience mod was applied or the program’s, claims-handling fees, and the PEO’s margin. Then compare the annual dollars, not the rate, against your current policy including its dividend or retro provisions. Also ask what happens to the net rate at renewal after a claim year, because a rate that was quoted to win the account can move sharply once your losses are inside the program.