Class code 5190: electrical wiring within buildings

By Adrian Middleton, Sword & Shield, PLLC · Updated Saturday, October 24, 2026

What code 5190 covers

• Installation, repair and service of electrical wiring, panels, fixtures and devices inside buildings, residential and commercial.
• Rough-in and trim-out on new construction and remodel, including temporary power.
• Generator and EV charger installation performed by the electrical crew.
• Apprentices, helpers and drivers.

What it does not cover

• Outside electrical line construction and utility work, separately classified.
• Low-voltage, alarm and communications wiring when separately classified and separately recorded.
• HVAC controls installed by an HVAC crew (5537).
• Clerical and outside sales (8810, 8742) for employees who do nothing else.

How the Division assigns it on a stop-work order

On a stop-work order worksheet, the investigator assigns a class code to each uninsured worker for each period from two sources: the employer's records (payroll by job, job descriptions, invoices, permits) and the investigator's own observation on the jobsite. With no records, Rule 69L-6.028 directs the Department to impute payroll at the highest-rated class code the investigator observed. Wire spools, panels and bending tools identify the crew. The worksheet in 5190 turns on headcount and on which entity paid the crew, since licensed electrical businesses often have a qualifying entity and an operating entity. Under the NCCI basic manual the governing class is the one with the most payroll, and an employee's payroll is assigned to a single code unless the records separate it by operation; interchange-of-labor splits require contemporaneous payroll records, not after-the-fact estimates. Getting a worker moved from code 5190 to a lower-rated code is a records argument, made line by line on Form DFS-F4-1595.

Electrical contracting is licensed under Chapter 489, Part II. Section 440.107(14) requires the Department to notify DBPR of the order. See licensed contractors and the DBPR referral.

Misclassification patterns the investigator looks for

• Payroll through an operating LLC while the exemption and the license sit on the qualifying corporation: the operating LLC is an uninsured employer, and the exemption does not cover it (s. 440.05(3), (11)).
• Apprentices paid as 1099: employees under s. 440.02(18)(c).
• Low-voltage installers coded to a lower code without separate payroll records: 5190 governs.

Clerical (8810) and outside sales (8742) are standard exception codes. A worker's payroll goes there only if their duties are exclusively clerical or sales and the records show it. An office manager who also runs materials to the jobsite, or an owner who sells jobs and swings a hammer, is assigned to the governing construction class for all of their payroll. This is the single most common reclassification on a penalty worksheet.

The rate

Florida's approved manual rate for this code is filed by NCCI and approved by the Office of Insurance Regulation effective each January 1. The Department's worksheet uses the rate in effect for each period of non-compliance, so a 24-month lookback can span three rate years. Rates are not stated on this page because they change; your agent, carrier or the current NCCI Florida rate pages have the figure. The free calculator takes the rate as an input.

Questions