Class code 5551: roofing, all kinds

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

What code 5551 covers

• Installation, repair and removal of roofing of every kind: shingle, tile, metal, built-up, single-ply membrane, foam and coatings, on residential and commercial buildings.
• Tear-off, dry-in, flashing, roof-deck repair performed as part of the roofing job, and gutter installation when done by the roofing crew.
• Yard and shop employees of a roofing contractor who also go to the jobsite.
• Drivers delivering materials to the roof when they also load or work on it.

What it does not cover

• Sheet metal fabrication in a shop (3076) and outside sheet metal work not on roofs (5538), where records separate it.
• Carpentry on the structure below the roof deck (5645, 5651 or 5403), where the same employee's payroll is separated by operation in contemporaneous records.
• Clerical (8810) and outside sales (8742) for employees who do nothing else.
• Waterproofing and sealing of walls and foundations, which has its own codes.

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. Anyone the investigator photographs on a roof deck, a ladder to the roof, or handling roofing material on the ground beside the building is recorded as 5551, and a roofing contractor with no separable records gets 5551 for the whole crew, including the owner. 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 5551 to a lower-rated code is a records argument, made line by line on Form DFS-F4-1595.

Misclassification patterns the investigator looks for

• Roofers carried as 'laborers' or 'helpers' in a general code. If the work was on the roof, the code is 5551.
• A roofing company's framing or repair work coded to carpentry without separate payroll records by job and operation.
• Owners with expired or wrong-entity exemptions: a roofing owner's draws for the uninsured weeks are rated at 5551. See how exemptions fail.
• 1099 'subcontractor' roofers who are individuals with no policy: employees under s. 440.02(18)(c), rated at 5551, plus $5,000 each under s. 440.107(7)(f) if they were represented as independent contractors.
• Payroll to the crew leader who 'brought his own guys': the roofing contractor is liable for all of them under s. 440.10(1)(b).

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