Who is your employer, and whose insurance pays?
Normally the staffing agency. It hired you, pays you, chose the site, and normally carries the policy — so a staffing agency injury is normally paid by the agency's carrier rather than the site's. Where an agency holds a full state policy, pays you directly and controls your work, it "is generally considered the primary employer under the Workers' Compensation Law," says the New York Workers' Compensation Board. Everything on this page was checked against the statutes and agencies of eight states — Texas, Florida, New York, Illinois, Ohio, Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Georgia. It does not speak for the others, so confirm your own in your state guide.
Now the part nobody explains. The business you were sent to — the host — is frequently your employer as well, for the same injury. OSHA states the baseline: "The staffing agency and the staffing agency's client (the host employer) are joint employers" (OSHA Temporary Worker Initiative). A temp worker injured on the job is often working for two employers at once and has never been told. That changes almost nothing about who mails your check, and everything about what your injury is worth. About 2.52 million people work in temporary help services (BLS, August 2026).
OSHA says the host is "responsible for recording the injuries and illnesses of temporary workers" (TWI Bulletin No. 1). Your injury can sit on the host's safety log while the money comes from the agency's carrier. A log entry is not a claim.
Report to both, today — and why that isn't just good advice
The most common way a temp worker loses a claim is telling only the on-site supervisor. But that supervisor works for the host, the policy belongs to the agency, and nothing carries a message from one to the other automatically.
This is backed by statute. Under 820 ILCS 175/85 the agency must "inquire about the client company's safety and health practices and hazards," and the host must give "specific training tailored to the particular hazards at the client company's worksite." When tasks or locations change, the host must "inform both the day and temporary labor service agency and the day or temporary laborer." Information flows both ways by law.
The same section lets you "refuse a new job task at the worksite when the task has not been reviewed," and OSHA bars agencies nationally from sending workers into hazards "on which they have not been trained" (OSHA policy memo).
- 1
Tell the on-site supervisor before you leave the floor
Say the words "work injury." Write down their name and the time.
- 2
Call the agency branch the same shift
Not tomorrow. If it is closed, call anyway and note the time.
- 3
Put both reports in writing today
A text or email to each is a dated receipt. Send it from your own phone.
- 4
Get care and name both companies
Tell the clinic it was a work injury, and note who sent you.
- 5
Ask for the carrier and claim number in writing
Without one you have nothing to chase.
To the site supervisor: "I'm reporting a work injury from today at [time] at [location]. I was doing [task] and hurt my [body part]. Please record it."
To the agency branch: "I'm reporting a work injury from my assignment at [host company] on [date]. I hurt my [body part] doing [task], and told [supervisor name] at [time]. Please open a workers' compensation claim and send me the carrier and claim number in writing."
Why this works: two dated records, same day, naming both companies. If the two later disagree about who knew what, you are not the one with an empty file.
Notice deadlines run against a word — "the employer" — with two possible answers here. The windows are short: 21 days in Pennsylvania, 30 in Texas, Florida, New York, North Carolina and Georgia, 45 in Illinois. The deadline checker runs them against your state guide.
An incident report and an OSHA log line are safety records. Neither opens a comp claim with the agency's carrier. Ask the agency in writing whether one was filed.
Dual employment: how one injury gets you two employers
Adjusters use old words for this without explaining them. Your general employer is the company that hired you — the agency. Your special employer, also called the borrowing employer, is the company you were lent to, which directs your work day to day. The borrowed servant doctrine is the old label for a lent-out worker becoming the employee of the business that borrowed them. Illinois puts it plainly: an employer that "loans an employee to another such employer" (820 ILCS 305/1(a)(4)). All are in the glossary.
What decides it is control. OSHA describes the split: "The host employer assigns the particular work to be done each day and controls operations in the physical workplace," while the agency "often controls a worker's paycheck and selects the host employer location." New York's Board rests its own test on pay, control and hire-and-fire authority, then adds "and satisfies other factors as defined by case law."
Control is the question, so the details that settle it are the ones nobody records. Who set your hours? Who could send you home? Note the names and companies now.
The fork that is actually worth money: can you sue the host?
Workers' comp is a trade. You get benefits without proving fault, and in exchange you generally give up the right to sue your employer for negligence. That is exclusive remedy: an employer's liability "shall be exclusive and in place of all other liability" (Fla. Stat. §440.11(1)).
Apply that to a temp assignment and it forks. If the host counts as your employer, exclusive remedy protects the host too and no negligence suit lies against them. If the host does not, it is a stranger to your employment — and a stranger who injures you can be sued. New York states the line in five words: a worker hurt "by the negligence or wrong of another not in the same employ" may take comp benefits and pursue that party too (NY WCL §29(1)). Texas preserves it at §417.001(a), Florida at §440.39(1).
Why this outranks everything else: comp pays a scheduled set of benefits, and a negligence claim is not capped by that schedule — frequently the difference between a modest award and a recovery several times larger. See our guide to third-party claims.
A statute names the host as your employer
Texas for temp services, Florida for help supply companies, Ohio, North Carolina and New York for PEOs.
Benefits with a second entity on the hook, so the claim cannot fall between them.
The negligence suit. Comp becomes the exclusive remedy against the host too.
The host is not in the same employ
No statute covers your arrangement, and the host did not control your work enough to be your employer.
Comp from the agency, plus a negligence claim the schedule does not cap.
The host will argue it was your employer precisely to shut this down.
A third company entirely was at fault
Another contractor's crew, an outside driver, a machine built by someone else.
This branch survives the host question — Texas §417.001(a), Florida §440.39(1).
Get that company's name off the truck, badge or plate today.
One wrinkle: where the host is your employer, the careless co-worker is protected too — Ohio says no employee "shall be liable to respond in damages" for injuring another employee of the same employer (ORC §4123.741). No website can tell you which branch you are on. What it can tell you is that the question exists, and that it is the expensive one.
Who carries coverage, and is the host immune? State by state
Eight states, each checked against the state's own statute or agency.
| State | Who carries the coverage | Is the host immune from suit? | Cite |
|---|---|---|---|
| Texas | The temporary employment service; its certificate is proof of coverage for the service "and the client" | Yes — §93.004(b) makes the client subject to §408.001, the exclusive-remedy section. The cleanest example anywhere | Lab. Code §§93.001, 93.004, 91.001, 91.042 |
| Florida | Either; the host's duty falls away where the help supply company secured payment | Yes, but on facts: the agency must be NAICS 561320 or 561330, and you must be "acting in furtherance of the employer's business" | Fla. Stat. §440.11(1), (2); §440.10; §468.520; §468.529 |
| Illinois | Both — the loaning employer pays if the borrowing employer does not | Liability, not immunity. The two are "joint and several" for benefits; the statute never declares the host immune | 820 ILCS 305/1(a)(4), 305/4; 175/85 |
| New York | The agency is "generally considered the primary employer." For a PEO, the client's policy or a PEO policy in the client's name | Turns on facts. For registered PEOs both are the employer; §29(1) bars suit against anyone "in the same employ" | NY Lab. Law §922(3)(c), (4); WCL §29(1) |
| Ohio | The PEO must maintain coverage, pay all premiums and manage all claims | Yes for PEO shared employees. An ordinary temp placement is not a PEO arrangement here, so §4125.04 may not reach it | ORC §§4125.01, 4125.03(A)(3), 4125.04, 4123.741 |
| Pennsylvania | No temp-staffing statute verified this pass | The verified route is §203, reaching a host who lets in a laborer hired by another for "a part of the employer's regular business." §303(a) then makes liability exclusive | PA WC Act §§203, 303(a) |
| North Carolina | For a PEO, "specifically allocated in the PEO agreement to either the client company or the licensee" | Yes for PEO arrangements — §58-89A-110(k) protects licensee and client alike. No temp-staffing equivalent verified | N.C.G.S. §§58-89A-5, 58-89A-100, 58-89A-110(k); §97-19 |
| Georgia | Not verified. Georgia confirms only a three-employee threshold, a 30-day report and a one-year claim deadline | Not verified, and we will not guess. No official Georgia source on staffing or borrowed employees was reachable | SBWC FAQs and Employee Handbook |
The Georgia row is deliberate. Commercial publishers will print you a Georgia rule and other articles copy them, but Georgia's State Board addresses temporary and borrowed employees nowhere in its employer section, its FAQs or its handbook. Where the official source is silent, this site says so. Nothing here tells you that you can or cannot sue a host — only which states wrote a rule.
Illinois answers a different question — and it must not be misread
Illinois has the most explicit loaned-employee statute here, and it is routinely misdescribed as a host-immunity rule. It is not one. Under 820 ILCS 305/1(a)(4), where an employer "loans an employee to another such employer" and the borrowing employer does not pay, the loaning employer "is liable to provide or pay all benefits or payments due such employee under this Act." Then the money sentence: "as to such employee the liability of such loaning and borrowing employers is joint and several." It names staffing firms directly, reaching a business that "consists of hiring, procuring or furnishing employees."
Read what that does. It makes both companies liable for your benefits. It says nothing about whether the borrowing employer is immune from a negligence suit. Anyone telling you Illinois bars a suit against the host is reading a sentence that is not there — and anyone promising you one is doing the same in reverse.
Their fight is not your problem. If each says the other owes you, Illinois has already put both on the hook and told them to settle up afterward.
PEO, staffing agency, or employee leasing — which one is yours?
PEO workers comp is not the same animal as a temp placement, and these three labels get used interchangeably by people who should know better. The difference decides which statute covers you.
A temp or staffing agency supplies extra people for a while. Texas defines a temporary employment service as one that "employs individuals for the purpose of assigning those individuals to the clients of the service to support or supplement the client's workforce" (Tex. Lab. Code §93.001) — NAICS 561320, the code New York uses to define a temporary service agency.
A PEO — professional employer organization — does not supply you to a client. It takes over employer functions for a workforce the client already has, under an agreement "for the purpose of coemploying all or part of the client employer's workforce" (ORC §4125.01), NAICS 561330. Ohio draws the sharpest published line: a "shared employee" is one "intended to be assigned to a client employer on a permanent basis, not as a temporary supplement to the client employer's workforce." A temp placement is a temporary supplement by definition, so Ohio's PEO client immunity under ORC §4125.04 does not automatically reach the warehouse that borrowed you.
Employee leasing is Florida's licensed version: an arrangement that "allocates the direction of and control over the leased employees between the leasing company and the client" (§468.520), where "A licensed employee leasing company is the employer of the leased employees" (§468.529). Florida's host immunity is keyed to that. Section 440.11(2) reaches a business using employees of "a help supply services company, as set forth in North American Industrial Classification System Codes 561320 and 561330," when those workers are "acting in furtherance of the employer's business." You are then "considered a borrowed employee." Two factual hooks — the agency's actual classification, and what you were doing when you were hurt.
The others protect both expressly. North Carolina's §58-89A-110(k) says the licensee and the client company "shall both be afforded the protections provided under Chapter 97," while leaving which one insures you inside a contract you have never seen. New York's Lab. Law §922(4): "Both the client and the professional employer organization shall be considered the employer for the purpose of coverage."
How to find out who actually insures you
Start with the name. The sign at the gate, the name on your badge and the name on the policy are frequently three different things. Take the agency's legal name off a pay stub — New York requires coverage "in its own legal name," and for related entities wants proof under each "Federal Employer Identification Number (FEIN)."
- New York: WCB Employer Coverage Search — wcb.ny.gov/icpocinq
- Florida: DWC Proof of Coverage database — dwcdataportal.fldfs.com
- Illinois: IWCC coverage search, or 866-352-3033 — iwcc.illinois.gov/coverage.html
- Georgia: SBWC coverage verification — sbwc.georgia.gov
- Ohio: BWC employer look-up and a separate PEO and AEO look-up
- Pennsylvania: L&I insurance search form — pa.gov
- North Carolina: Industrial Commission coverage search — ccms.ic.nc.gov
- Texas: run by the Texas Division of Workers' Compensation; no working public URL confirmed this pass, so we are not printing one.
Two registration checks are worth running too. Certain Illinois staffing agencies must register with the Department of Labor, and clients must re-verify each March and September (Illinois DOL). New York PEOs register with its Department of Labor under Labor Law Article 31 (NYSDOL).
"Please send me in writing: the full legal name of my employer of record, the workers' compensation carrier and policy number, the claim number opened for my injury on [date], and the adjuster's name and phone number."
Why this works: it turns "we're handling it" into either a claim number or a written admission that nothing was filed.
If the search comes back empty for both companies, read what happens when your employer has no workers' comp.
The traps that catch temp workers specifically
The assignments quietly stop. Every state here bars punishing a worker for claiming comp — Texas §451.001, Florida §440.205, Illinois 820 ILCS 305/4(h), New York WCL §120, Ohio §4123.90 (90 days for written notice, 180 to sue) and North Carolina §95-241. The honest limit: those statutes are written around discharge and discrimination, and no official source we verified answers whether an agency's refusal to offer another assignment counts. That is genuinely open — a question for a lawyer, quickly if you are in Ohio. See being fired after a comp claim.
A light-duty offer arrives from the agency, not the site. Straight with you: no official source we could verify addresses light-duty offers made by an agency rather than the host, or what follows if you turn one down. Make the record clean instead — get the offer in writing with tasks, hours, location and pay, ask which company is making it, and take it to the doctor who wrote your restrictions. Background: light-duty rules and the return-to-work guide.
The assignment crosses a state line. Florida covers an injury elsewhere if "the contract of employment was made in this state, or the employment was principally localized in this state," capped so recovery is not "greater than is provided in this chapter" (§440.09(1)). Texas has extraterritorial coverage at §406.071, with §406.072 keying principal location to where you regularly work or reside — and §406.075 adds a trap, because electing another state's remedies and recovering there can forfeit the Texas claim.
The paperwork you signed on day one. Temp onboarding is a stack signed in a lobby in ten minutes, and somewhere in it may be an arbitration agreement or forms treating you as an independent contractor. Neither changes who actually directed your work, and misclassification is fixable — but not if you never learn what you signed. Our misclassification checker walks that, and the warehouse guide covers these injuries.
The site says "you don't work for us, call your agency." The agency says "we weren't there." That loop runs for weeks while bills go unpaid. Break it by writing to both the same day.
Weeks of "it's being processed" with no carrier and no number usually means nothing was filed. Run the lookup, then ask for the claim number under the policy you found.
That person works for the host; the policy belongs to the agency.
The host logs your injury on a safety log. The carrier never reads it.
Arbitration clauses and contractor forms get signed in lobbies daily. Ask for copies.
Write down who directed you and for which company. That line is evidence later.
What to do this week — and when you don't need a lawyer
Most temp claims are not complicated. If the agency's carrier accepted the claim, treatment is authorized and the checks arrive on time, there is nothing here to litigate and no reason to pay anyone a fee. Say that out loud, because plenty of pages will not.
The moments that earn a free consultation are narrow. The main one is the fork above: where a host business, a machine or another company's crew caused the injury, the host's status decides whether a much larger claim exists. The others are a claim stalled between two companies, or a flat denial. The do-I-need-a-lawyer tool walks it; if your checks stopped, read late workers' comp checks.
Your first week
0 of 6 done
The day-one sequence in full is in the first 24 hours guide, and adjuster wording is in what to say. If a bill landed, read who pays your medical bills; if treatment was refused, denied medical treatment; if harm built up across several assignments, occupational disease claims.
Host immunity was verified as a statutory answer in only a handful of states, and even there it turns on facts. Any page telling you flatly that you can, or cannot, sue the company you were sent to is claiming what the statutes do not say.
Frequently asked questions
Whether the site counts as your employer decides if a second, uncapped claim exists — a question a lawyer can assess in one conversation. Consultations are free, and your assignment paperwork plus your two reports are usually all they need.
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