How much does insurance cost for real estate agents and brokers?

When the license itself requires E&O

Real estate E&O pays for claims that a client lost money through your professional mistake or omission. A handful of states make it a condition of an active license. We confirmed the following with the state commissions and statutes on October 13, 2026:

Scroll the table sideways to see every column.

Details that change what you buy:

• Nebraska’s limits are per licensee. The $300,000 aggregate applies to each individual covered, not to the brokerage as a whole. Outside coverage must come from a carrier authorized in Nebraska, approved by the Department of Insurance and rated B+ or better by A.M. Best (financial size Class VI or better). Independent policies expiring on or after January 1, 2026 must be certified for a two-year renewal⁠⁵.
• North Dakota delegates the numbers. The statute gives the commission the minimum limits, deductible and permitted exceptions. It also suspends the requirement for any year in which the commission cannot buy coverage at a reasonable premium⁠⁶.
• South Dakota warns about unadmitted carriers. The commission says it found licensees paying premiums to companies that were not admitted carriers in South Dakota or their own state, which it says could create serious liability problems if a claim is made⁠⁷.
• Other states. We did not check other states’ commission pages in this review, so we state no requirement or limits for them.

Where E&O is a license condition, a lapse is a licensing problem: in Nebraska a licensee whose coverage is not certified is placed on inactive status⁠⁵. In states with no mandate, brokerages often require E&O of their agents by contract; we found no source that measures how common that is, so we do not give a share.

What E&O costs: the figure that exists

The only agent-specific price in our data is ERGO NEXT’s:

Insurer- and broker-reported figures from each company’s own customers, as published on its website; not a random sample of all businesses. Figures are rounded as published.

Read these with care:

• It is an average, not a median. The $70 figure is an average of premiums paid by ERGO NEXT customers who bought professional liability in the prior 12 months, per the company’s disclosure⁠⁹.
• It is not the state-mandated policy. We do not know the limits behind it, and the page does not say whether it meets Nebraska’s $300,000 per-licensee aggregate or any other state’s rules. Check the limit, the retention and who is insured before comparing it with a group program price.
• The workers’ comp row is labelled “real estate”, not agents, and the page’s disclosure text refers to commercial property buyers, which looks like a copy error⁠¹⁰.

We have no published rating formula for agent E&O, so we give no multiplier. Ask each quote for its limit, retention and who is insured.

Workers’ comp: offices are low-rated, and agents are often not employees

Real estate agents are usually paid commission and sign an independent contractor agreement with a brokerage. For federal tax, 26 U.S.C. 3508 treats a licensed real estate agent as a non-employee when two conditions hold. Substantially all pay must be directly related to sales or other output, and the work must be done under a written contract saying the agent will not be treated as an employee for federal tax purposes⁠¹¹. That statute does not decide workers’ comp status. Each state applies its own test, and we did not confirm any state’s real estate rule in this review.

Where an office does carry employees, the state-fund classes are:

Base rates set by the state fund before experience modification. Ohio and Wyoming charge per $100 of payroll; Washington charges per hour worked, and part is withheld from wages. Other states’ insurers file their own rates; see where rates are published.

• Washington. Class 7202, “Real Estate Agencies/Brokers”, is $0.2319 per hour in 2026, of which $0.1019 is the employee share. Clerical class 4904 is $0.2223⁠².
• Ohio. BWC’s schedule has no line named for real estate agencies. Class 8742, outside salespersons, is $0.0996 per $100 of payroll from July 1, 2026, class 9012 covers property managers, leasing agents and clerical staff in building management at $0.1891, and clerical 8810 is $0.0466⁠¹. Which class BWC assigns to a given brokerage is a classification decision we did not verify.
• Wyoming. NAICS-based class 531000, Real Estate, is $1.42 per $100 of payroll in 2026⁠³. That is about 14 times Ohio’s outside-sales rate. The two schedules define classes differently, so this is not a like-for-like comparison.

Our calculation, on stated assumptions: two employees in a Washington brokerage office working 1,800 hours each is 3,600 hours. At $0.2319 an hour, that is $834.84 a year, of which $366.84 (3,600 × $0.1019) is the worker share⁠². In Ohio, $120,000 of clerical payroll at class 8810 is 1,200 × $0.0466 = $55.92 at the base rate, before experience rating⁠¹. These are not quotes.

The BLS June 2026 survey does not break out real estate. Its “financial activities” group (the nearest sector; BLS does not list real estate on its own here) costs employers $0.23 an hour worked in workers’ comp, against $0.43 for all private industry⁠⁴:

Average employer cost per employee hour worked for workers' compensation and for health insurance, averaged across all workers in the group, plus workers' compensation as a percent of total compensation. Group averages mix high- and low-risk jobs, so they are not a premium rate for any single business. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), National Compensation Survey, June 2026 (2026 Q2), private industry workers, released 9 Sep 2026.

ERGO NEXT’s $79 a month average for “real estate” workers’ comp (April 2026 data) is an average of its own customers⁠¹⁰. The page does not say how many employees or what payroll sit behind it.

Other coverage a brokerage looks at

• General liability covers a visitor injured at an open house or an office. It does not cover professional advice errors, which is why E&O is separate. See general liability.
• Cyber liability. Check whether your E&O form excludes wire-transfer fraud or data breaches; we have not reviewed a specific form. See cyber liability.
• Business owner’s policy bundles property and liability for a brokerage office. See business owner’s policy.

How to budget

1. Find your state’s rule first

   If your commission mandates E&O, price the group program and an equivalent outside policy on the same limits, retention and insured parties.

2. Separate agents from employees

   Comp applies to the staff you pay wages, priced by the office or sales class above. Ask your carrier in writing how it treats commissioned agents.

3. Compare any insurer figure on its basis

   Average or median, monthly or annual, which limits.

4. Add the rest

   from quotes, not from averages.

Sources

1. 1
   Ohio Bureau of Workers' Compensation / Ohio Administrative Code, OAC 4123-17-06, Appendix A: base rates effective July 1, 2026 (private employers) Checked 13 Oct 2026 · Back to text ↑
2. 2
   Washington State Department of Labor & Industries, 2026 hourly rates by risk classification Checked 13 Oct 2026 · Back to text ↑
3. 3
   Wyoming Department of Workforce Services, Workers' compensation 2026 industry base rates by classification Checked 13 Oct 2026 · Back to text ↑
4. 4
   U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Employer Costs for Employee Compensation, June 2026 (released Sept. 9, 2026) Checked 13 Oct 2026 · Back to text ↑
5. 5
   Nebraska Real Estate Commission, Errors & Omissions Insurance Fact Sheet (2026) Checked 13 Oct 2026 · Back to text ↑
6. 6
   North Dakota Legislative Branch, North Dakota Century Code chapter 43-23, Real Estate Brokers and Salespersons (sections 43-23-19 to 43-23-23) Checked 13 Oct 2026 · Back to text ↑
7. 7
   South Dakota Department of Labor & Regulation, Real Estate Commission, Errors and omissions insurance Checked 13 Oct 2026 · Back to text ↑
8. 8
   Idaho Division of Occupational and Professional Licenses, Idaho Real Estate Commission (E&O certification forms) Checked 13 Oct 2026 · Back to text ↑
9. 9
   ERGO NEXT, How much does professional liability insurance cost? (data updated August 2025) Checked 13 Oct 2026 · Back to text ↑
10. 10
    ERGO NEXT, How much does workers' comp insurance cost? (data updated April 2026) Checked 13 Oct 2026 · Back to text ↑
11. 11
    Legal Information Institute, Cornell Law School (U.S. Code), 26 U.S. Code 3508, Treatment of real estate agents and direct sellers Checked 13 Oct 2026 · Back to text ↑

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