Maine Roofing Workers Comp Rates (2026)
Maine does not publish its roofing class figures online. Across the 26 states that do, the median typical premium is about $11.21 per $100 of payroll. Ask a carrier or the state's rating bureau for the current Maine figure.
No official Maine figure is available online, so the numbers below use the US median of the states that publish one.
Maine class code for roofing
- 5551: Roofing - All Kinds & Drivers
Falls are the main hazard in roofing. In 2023 roofing contractors accounted for 110 fatal falls, 26 percent of all fatal falls in construction (BLS).
What comp costs per roofer in Maine
The Bureau of Labor Statistics counts 610 roofers on payrolls in Maine (May 2025), the 39th largest workforce among the 50 states and DC. The median wage is $24.10 an hour, 10% below the US median of $26.65.
Roofers make up about the same share of Maine jobs as they do nationally (location quotient 1.09).
At the US median of $11.21 per $100 of payroll (Maine does not publish its figure online), comp on one worker at that wage costs about $2.70 for every hour worked, or $5,619 a year full time. A 4-person crew comes to roughly $22,477 a year in premium before any experience mod.
Because premium is charged on payroll, who you hire moves the bill. Maine pay runs from $21.58 an hour at the 10th percentile to $30.98 at the 90th, so the same rate costs $2.42 an hour on a new hire and $3.47 on a senior hand.
Workers comp requirements in Maine
- Coverage required: 1 employee
- Owners and sole proprietors: Owners of 20%+ may waive in writing; LLC members opt out without a written waiver
- State fund: Private market; MEMIC (employer-owned mutual) is the residual carrier
- Waiting period: 7 days; retroactive if incapacity exceeds 14 days
- Penalty for going without: Knowing failure is a Class D crime; civil penalty up to $10,000 or 108% of the avoided premium
Maine's entire residual market runs through one employer-owned mutual, MEMIC, created after the state's early-1990s coverage crisis.
What moves a roofing comp bill
- Falls drive roofing claims, and one serious fall can push your experience mod well above 1.0 for three policy years. A written fall-protection plan and documented toolbox talks are what carriers ask to see before they offer a safety credit.
- Uninsured subcontractors are the most common audit surprise in roofing. If a sub cannot show you a certificate of insurance, the auditor adds what you paid them to your own payroll at the roofing rate.
- Estimators and salespeople who never go on a roof can often be classed separately at a far lower rate, but only if your payroll records show their hours apart from field work.
- Overtime premium (the extra half in time and a half) is excluded from comp payroll in most states. Record it separately so you are not charged the roofing rate on it.