David Friedlander, Vice PresidentFor most New York employers, Workers’ Compensation feels less like insurance and more like a tax. It is required by law. The benefits are set by statute. The coverage does not change from one carrier to the next. Every year, the premium renews and most businesses absorb it as a fixed cost of doing business in the state.
Friedlander Group has spent more than three decades proving that Workers’ Compensation doesn’t have to be a fixed cost and has saved clients almost $1 billion since 1992.
A fourth-generation family business and the largest broker with the New York State Insurance Fund, Friedlander Group manages ten Safety Groups underwritten by NYSIF, which operates on a not-for-profit basis. The firm’s model rests on a simple premise: Workers’ Compensation may be required, but overpaying for it is not. The way to stop overpaying isn’t to chase a cheaper policy. It’s to build a workplace where employees, a company’s most valuable asset, stay healthy, productive and on the job. When that happens, lower premiums follow naturally.
The Structure That Changes Everything
Most brokers treat Workers’ Compensation as a commodity. Friedlander treats it as a highly specialized process that is key to productivity and profits, directly impacting employee well-being, operational performance and the long-term cost structure.
How do NYSIF Safety Groups structurally change Workers’ Compensation costs for employers?
At the center of that system are NYSIF Safety Groups, a program established in 1923, built on a straightforward premise: if employers support New York’s economy and stay committed to safety, NYSIF will provide Workers’ Compensation at cost through substantial group discounts and dividends. Because NYSIF is not-for-profit, the profits flow back to members as dividends—a fundamental structural difference from the private market, where a good year benefits the carrier, not policyholders.
Friedlander’s ten Safety Groups pool employers within the same industry who demonstrate strong safety records and claims discipline. Qualification requires safety-conscious employers to preserve the financial integrity of each group and ensure members are not subsidizing poor performers elsewhere in the pool.
What Membership Actually Delivers
What financial results have Safety Group members achieved through discounts and dividends?
Members receive advanced discounts up to 35 percent and back-end dividends across the firm’s ten groups have averaged 30 percent annually since 1992, with most groups exceeding 40 percent in recent years. Taken together, eligible employers can save up to 57 percent on premiums. That’s not a typo; it is the lowest Workers’ Compensation cost structure available in New York, backed by 33 years of documented results.
Since 1992, Friedlander Group has returned more than $815 million in combined discounts and dividends to its members. That is 33 years of documented results across thousands of clients in restaurants, retail, wholesale, hotels/motels, fuel & oil dealers, home health care, residential care, financial services, building material dealers and transportation, not a projection, not a best-case scenario. And for employers not yet eligible for Safety Group participation, the firm’s Workers’ Care program (NYSIF Group 90 and others) provides full access to Friedlander’s safety, claims management and loss control services, with the explicit long-term objective of correcting underlying safety issues and transitioning qualifying businesses into a dividend-paying group when they’re ready.
Protecting Your Best Players
Consider a scenario: it’s Game 1 of the World Series at Yankee Stadium and Derek Jeter and Alex Rodriguez collide making a play. Both go down injured. In that moment, the Yankees organization is not thinking about their Workers’ Compensation premiums. They are thinking about the $1+ billion in potential revenue, advertising deals and merchandise sales that just walked off the field, because without their two best players, their chances of winning the World Series just collapsed.
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Taken together, eligible employers can save up to 57 percent on premiums. That’s not a typo; it is the lowest Workers’ Compensation cost structure available in New York, backed by 33 years of documented results.
The same logic applies to every business in America.
When a company loses key employees to a workplace injury/illness, the immediate cost isn’t the insurance claim. It’s the lost productivity, missed deadlines, institutional knowledge that walks out the door and the customers who don’t get served at the level they expect. Workers’ Compensation premiums are a lagging indicator. The real cost of a workplace injury occurs long before the renewal arrives.
This is why Friedlander Group’s mission, to maximize clients’ productivity and profits by keeping their number one asset, their employees, working and safe, is built around prevention first, not claims management after the fact. Every service supports that goal: safety training, worksite visits, safety committee formation, medical bill auditing, fraud mitigation and direct follow-up with injured workers. Each is designed to keep key employees healthy and on the job, so that a company’s most valuable players remain on the field.
The financial logic compounds over time. When employees stay safe, injuries decline. When injuries decline, experience modification ratings improve. When ratings improve, premiums decrease. Employers who build a genuine Culture of Caring™, where employees feel that their safety matters and injured workers are treated with dignity rather than suspicion, don’t just do right by their people. They retain experienced talent, maintain operational continuity and systematically lower their cost structure. The connection between how a company treats its people and what it pays for Workers’ Compensation is more direct than most employers realize.
Claims Management: A Second Set of Eyes
How does the Friedlander Claims Solution™ process oversee claims from report to resolution?
Friedlander Claims Solution™ process provides structured oversight from the first report through final resolution. When a claim comes in, the firm first determines whether it needs to be submitted at all. Under Section 110 of the Workers’ Compensation Law, first-aid/minor incidents that meet the legal criteria may be self-paid, the Workers’ Compensation equivalent of handling a fender bender out of pocket rather than filing an auto claim, keeping the event out of the employer’s loss experience entirely.
When claims must be submitted, Friedlander’s claims professionals, many with carrier-side backgrounds, serve as a second set of eyes. Carrier adjusters manage heavy caseloads, and reserves are set quickly based on historical assumptions, often going unchallenged. Left untouched, inflated reserves become embedded in experience modification ratings and drive premiums higher for years. Active monitoring, medical coordination and timely reassessment ensure claims are reserved accurately and closed when appropriate, directly protecting loss ratios, dividend eligibility and long-term cost stability.
For high-exposure or suspicious claims, the firm’s SWAT Team conducts background investigations, coordinates independent medical examinations, audits billing and ensures all statutory defenses are explored. The goal is never to deny legitimate claims; it is to ensure benefits are paid accurately under the law. Through early and sustained intervention, the SWAT Team has helped reduce reserves by more than $20 million across significant cases.
The Classification Problem No One Talks About
Workers’ Compensation premiums are calculated by multiplying payroll by the rate assigned to each job classification and those rates can vary dramatically. A home healthcare company, for example, might carry $2 million in payroll for clerical employees incorrectly classified under the home healthcare code. The clerical rate might be $0.10 per $100 of payroll; the home healthcare rate is $2.26. That misclassification, left uncorrected, significantly inflates premiums year after year.
Friedlander’s audit specialists review job duties, payroll records and operational structure, then work directly with NYSIF to correct discrepancies. The result is frequently a meaningful premium refund or credit and a cleaner classification structure that prevents future distortion of experience modifications.
The Case for a Closer Look
Recognition as Workers’ Compensation Company of the Year 2026 reflects a model built on a mission that goes well beyond placing policies. When employees are a company’s greatest asset, keeping them safe, healthy and productive isn’t a compliance function; it is a growth strategy. Every championship team protects its best players. Every thriving business should do the same.
Friedlander Group offers a complimentary review of Safety Group eligibility, claims performance and payroll classification accuracy for qualifying New York employers. The question isn’t whether the program works, $815 million in returned savings since 1992 answers that. The question is whether your most valuable players and your bottom line are getting the protection they deserve.
