Commercial Insurance Leads from OSHA Citations

Each week OSHA and the state OSHA programs issue new citations to about 770 employers across the U.S., and 74% of those inspections include at least one serious, repeat or willful item. For a commercial lines producer, each one is a business with a documented safety problem, an owner paying attention to it right now, and a public record any underwriter can read. Here is how brokers turn that list into risk reviews and quotes.

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How serious the cited employers are

Every inspection that got new citations in 13 weeks of summer 2026, by the signals underwriters and loss control teams look at.

How serious the cited employers are
Signal	Inspections	Share
All cited inspections	10,005	100%
Any penalty	8,565	86%
At least one serious, repeat or willful item	7,412	74%
Opened after an accident, a complaint or a fatality	3,094	31%
Penalties of $10,000 or more	2,241	22%
At least one repeat or willful item	787	8%
Penalties of $50,000 or more	209	2%

Source: OSHAlert's copy of the public U.S. Department of Labor OSHA enforcement data, federal and state-plan. Citations issued June 1 to August 30, 2026 (13 weeks), counted once per inspection, 9,824 companies in all. Penalties are the current amounts as of October 24, 2026. Median penalty per inspection: $3,643.

Cited employers per week, by industry

Pick the classes you already write. Construction and manufacturing make up two thirds of the list.

Cited employers per week, by industry
Industry	Per week	Serious or worse	Median penalty
Construction	341.2	81%	$3,972
Manufacturing	163.0	78%	$5,000
Retail trade	30.0	64%	$2,819
Administrative and waste services	28.5	68%	$2,625
Accommodation and food services	25.5	51%	$1,808
Wholesale trade	25.2	72%	$5,050
Warehousing and transportation	25.1	62%	$4,126
Agriculture and forestry	22.7	35%	$1,535
Healthcare	16.8	55%	$1,509
All other industries	91.6	71%	$1,284

Same data and dates as above. Industry comes from the NAICS code on the inspection.

Cited employers per week, by state

The 12 states with the most cited inspections. State-plan states (California, Michigan, Washington, Oregon) cite often with smaller penalties.

Cited employers per week, by state
State	Per week	Median penalty
California	94.4	$2,000
Michigan	64.9	$750
Washington	51.2	$1,927
Illinois	32.2	$5,979
Texas	31.3	$8,086
Oregon	30.8	$1,457
Ohio	29.0	$6,810
Florida	28.1	$6,809
New Jersey	25.9	$10,725
Tennessee	24.8	$250
New York	24.8	$2,480
Minnesota	24.5	$1,440

Same data and dates as above. Example: Texas construction had 216 cited inspections in the 13 weeks, about 17 a week, with a median penalty of $6,902.

The method, step by step

1. Start from your appetite, not the whole list
Filter to the states you are licensed in and the classes your markets want. A Texas producer with a construction book has about 17 newly cited contractors a week to look at. Then sort: serious, repeat or willful items first, and accident or fatality inspections first among those.
2. Find the cited firm and read the record like an underwriter
Look up the inspection on OSHA's free Establishment Search or an OSHAlert record page. Note why it was opened, which standards were cited, the severity of each item and the penalty. Check for earlier inspections of the same company too: a pattern says more than one visit.
Falls, struck-by hazards, machine guarding and lockout are common causes of serious workplace injuries, the same exposures behind many workers' compensation claims. An accident inspection means someone may already have been hurt.
3. Check the abatement date and case status
Each citation item has an abatement date by which the hazard must be fixed, and the employer must then certify the fix to OSHA. In the summer 2026 data the earliest abatement date on an inspection was a median of 24 days after the citation. Until then the owner is spending time and money on safety, which is when an offer of loss control help lands.
If the case is still open, the employer may be contesting or settling. Talk about risk, not the dispute.
4. Find who to call
The record often shows the worksite, so find the company's office, website and main line (OSHAlert adds them from Google Places when it can). At small and mid-size firms, ask for the owner or the CFO; at larger ones, the risk manager or the HR lead who handles workers' comp.
Check your own book first. If you already write any line for this company, you are the first call, and it is a service call, not a cold one.
5. Offer a risk review, then a quote
Offer something useful before you ask for the policy: a review of the citation and the abatement plan, an introduction to your carrier's loss control team or a safety consultant you trust, and a look at their workers' comp program (experience mod, return-to-work, claims handling). Ask when their policies renew.
The record is public, so their carrier's underwriter can read it too. Helping them show what they fixed before renewal is a real reason to talk.
6. Use a short, factual opener
"Hi, this is [name] with a commercial insurance agency in Dallas. I saw on the public OSHA record that your team was cited in [month] for trenching. Owners in that spot often want their safety fixes documented before renewal, and I can bring our carrier's loss control people in at no cost. When does your workers' comp renew?"
7. Watch your existing clients too
Set the same alert on the companies you already insure. Hearing about a client's citation from you, with a plan, protects the renewal better than hearing about it from the underwriter.

What a citation does and does not mean for premiums

A citation is not a claim. Workers' comp premiums are driven by payroll, class rates and the experience mod, which counts claims, so an OSHA penalty does not enter the mod by itself. The injuries behind an accident inspection can, if they became claims.

What the citation does give you is timing and a reason: a documented hazard, a deadline, and an owner who is thinking about safety and cost this month.

Getting the list every week

You can find each record free on osha.gov. OSHAlert checks the public data every night and emails new citations in your states and industries on the days you pick, with penalties, severity, the company's OSHA history and contact details when we have them.

Starter is $49 a month for one state and Professional is $149 a month for up to 5 states. Every plan starts with a 7-day free trial and no card. Or start with the free list: 5 companies in your state with new OSHA inspections or citation updates, every Monday. OSHAlert is independent and not affiliated with OSHA or the Department of Labor.

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New citations in your states and industries, on the days you pick, with company details and abatement dates in the dashboard.

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Frequently asked questions

Are OSHA citations good commercial insurance leads?

They are good timing signals. Each one is a business with a documented safety problem and a deadline to fix it. In our summer 2026 data, 74% of cited inspections had a serious, repeat or willful item, and 31% were opened after an accident, a complaint or a fatality.

Which OSHA citations matter most to an insurance broker?

Accident and fatality inspections, repeat and willful items, and larger penalties. Only 8% of cited inspections had a repeat or willful item and 2% had $50,000 or more in penalties, so those are the short list.

Does an OSHA citation raise workers' comp premiums?

Not directly. The penalty is not a claim and does not enter the experience mod. Injuries that become claims do. The citation is public, so underwriters can see it.

How many employers get OSHA citations each week?

About 770 a week across the U.S. in our data for citations issued June 1 to August 30, 2026: 10,005 inspections at 9,824 companies.

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