$103,000 saved in a single year by replacing EOR markups with per-assignment coverage
A national talent firm gave its uninsured contractors proper workers' comp through 1099Policy — at a fraction of the cost of pushing them through an Employer of Record.
The situation
Like many firms that place independent contractors, this company faced a recurring problem: a meaningful share of its contractors didn't carry their own workers' compensation. Historically, the only way to close that gap was to run those people through an Employer of Record (EOR) as W-2 workers — which meant absorbing a steep markup on every dollar of compensation, on populations that didn't need to be employees in the first place.
The firm is contractually obligated to mitigate risk on behalf of its own clients, so leaving contractors uninsured wasn't an option. The question was purely one of cost and structure: how do you guarantee compliant coverage without paying EOR economics for it?
The solution
The firm moved this population onto 1099Policy's per-assignment model. Instead of converting contractors to W-2 and paying an EOR markup, each contractor is covered with workers' compensation in their own name, priced as a small percentage of the compensation they earn. On top of that, the firm pays a small platform access fee — a fraction of a percent of spend routed through 1099Policy.
The results
Over a single year-to-date period, the firm booked $673,180 of contractor compensation through 1099Policy:
Routing those same people through an EOR — at a 16% markup, just to give them workers' comp they otherwise wouldn't have had — would have cost about $106,699.
1099Policy's platform fee on that volume was a small fraction of the EOR cost, so the firm saved on the order of $103,000 in the period — roughly a 97% reduction versus the EOR route.
"The savings of using 1099Policy vs. an EOR are substantial when an IC does not have workers' comp and this historically was the only option. … The platform fee is a good deal … and gives us peace of mind that we are properly mitigating risk on behalf of our clients, where we are contractually obligated to do so, with the proper compliant coverage."
— Operations leader, national talent firm
Why it matters
For finance and operations leaders, the EOR markup is often treated as the unavoidable cost of compliance. It isn't. When the only goal is to make sure a contractor is properly insured — not to actually employ them — per-assignment coverage delivers the same risk protection at a fraction of the cost, and keeps the worker's independent status intact.