Great company. They care about their clients and will go above and beyond for them. If you are looking for Insurance Company to work with and provide services for your employees contact them. read more

They are the greatest team! I love their personal touch to everything! They listen to you and will treat you very fairly.

Great customer service. Easy conversation. Laura needs a raise she is awesome. People hear are great.

Great company and great people. Excellent booth at RiskWorld. Laura was very helpful!

the best of the best. Offer workers comp and commercial lines as well as great customer service

Super cool mascot and very nice people! Really enjoyed my chat with them. They have a lot of capabilities!

Great company, great people, and love the dog logo! Visited at RISKWORLD 2026 in Philadelphia.

Phenomenal insurance and great people to talk to and awesome giveaways! Lauras great!

Thanks to this Applied for this all their assistance on our unique specialty lines! great partner!!

Laura, with applied underwriters is fantastic. Great company to work with. They have very cool booth at Houston I-Day.

1st time at Iday and stopping by the Applied booth was by far the best booth! Very friendly people and great info!

This is such a great company! Amazing response times and they had an amazing booth in Houston.

This is a great company! I love seeing the Big Dog at conferences and conventions! The team I spoke with had a lot of great intel and information that I can take with me moving forward. read more

Lies. Worst company we've ever worked with. Would not recommend their service (really their lack of service) to anyone. If you want actual support and help with your business insurance, PLEASE TAKE IT ANYWHERE ELSE BUT HERE. Specifically Sean Popejoy. He's the most polite and useless person we've had the displeasure of working with. Thanks for nothing Sean. read more

No it hasn't been resolved, I still have a blown bicep. Like I said the dr told me you guys dropped the ball and it should of been repaired as soon as possible. He said the window of opportunity is very small to repair a bicep. You guys waited to long and never approved any treatment for it. Now I have to live with an injury I acquired from a work related injury. It is such BS an injured employee has to deal with. An injured person should focus on getting better, not worry about if treatment is going to get approved or even fighting for an approval. read more

I am an injured who negotiated with Applied Underwriters a Worker's Comp deal, after having signed said documents. It's been a "freaking hayday" with one Latasha Taylor, avoiding phone call-after phone, deceptive practices, and lying to me. BEWARE of their business dealings and make your lawyer stays on top of matters. read more

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Over charging for payroll services an hiding the fees. My insurance broker called them multiple time to try and find out home much they are charging for payroll fees, nobody was able or willing to tell us. They charge a comp rate that includes taxes and fees, after my accountant broke down the numbers, it turned out they were charging almost 6% on my total payroll in fees ! 5% more than other payroll companies. They are scamming their customers, someone should be going to jail. Pat read more

I totally agree with all of the other reviews regarding the business practices of AUW. I have been a client for 3 years after being sold on their "low rates" and have been equally frustrated with working with the "payroll company" that is "not really a payroll company" (their words, not mine). I agree that anytime a company is submitting reports on your behalf, that you should be getting copies of EVERYTHING. Not the case with this company. They refuse to breakdown their reports or send you ANY information in regards to what they are paying. This is definitely my LAST term with this company. Don't be duped into believing that they are saving you money because their rates are lower than others. I recently hired a bookkeeper who audited my payroll and found that over the course of last year I was charged about $45000 for their "services". I almost threw up when I found this out. These were unexplained leftover charges that could only be considered going toward their service fees. When I first changed to this company, I had never used a payroll service and was a little nervous about the whole thing. I called and talked to an account manager to find out what they charge for the PR service and he told me "It's built into the composite rate, but it's on par with other payroll companies. About $200-$300/mo". At the time we had maybe 9 employees. We're not a big company, even now, but it seemed worth it to save that much on the insurance. Fast forward 3 years and my new bookkeeper auditing my payroll. Hindsight is 20/20. You don't realize it since you are paying so frequently. Nothing jumps out at you. But beware. They will get you. I will certainly be filing a complaint with the Dept of Insurance after all is said and done. read more

Applied has some really nice people in their office....unfortunately there are many in charge who have priorities not associated with helping out the actual customer. They hook you with a complex multi year workers comp plan that seems cheap unless you have any claims and then sell you on a simple payroll system...all in one, sounds great right. Until you realize they need paper time sheets faxed over and can't handle excel....yeah that's right...2019 and no excel. All their reports are PDF's that are not clean so good luck even converting them to use the data. You need a report right away....not gonna happen...the quickest I have received anything is 4 hours, typically it's 8 hours to get anything emailed to you. Again this is not the employees faults, there are plenty of nice people. Management is not steering this company in the right direction. read more

Total bait and switch. Horrible company, DO NOT sign anything without having your attorney read it first. We lost tens and thousands of dollars. The second we could get out we did. Our broker wasn't able to get us out of the year long contract and it was incredibly stressful being a small business to begin with. They do not care about their customers, only their profit. read more

The company I work for was a client of this company for one year 1/3/2011 to 1/1/2012. This company is nothing but a money stealing machine. They were supposed to file the companies payroll liability taxes, and they did everything wrong. I had the IRS looking for money that I assumed that Applied was paying out. When I questioned them I was told the IRS was wrong. I get that the IRS is not perfect however, when they are breathing down my neck for money that was supposed to paid on the companies account and that the company has paid out, guess what? The IRS is not wrong. And I had to do all the work to prove Applied filed in a way that was unacceptable, and they also took no accountability. Their communication skills lack in every aspect, try calling, you will deal with one person that they have given the GOD ability to. What I mean is, that one person knows everything and not matter what they say are right and end on be all stops with this one person. Don't try to ask for a manager, they don't exist, and if they do, they must be so important that they have no time to speak with a customer. No calls are ever returned and try to get documentation relevant to what you are asking about.....not going to happen. It has been two years since the company I work for has been a customer of Applied, and yesterday they decided to take $86 from an operating checking account and I was dumb founded. I called this company and they told me that they could do an unauthorized debit because I was a part of a pool. Funny, I was never told or agreed to be a part of a pool when the company was a client. Hmm so misrepresentation on top of everything else. If I wanted to be in a WC pool I would have paid the maximum price and stayed in the MA pool...... This company is a joke. I will be filing formal complaints about this company within the state of MA. They need to be stopped, my money is my money, not theirs for the taking when they please. read more

This company clearly misrepresents your tax documents and the reports they provide to the IRS. SO BE CAREFUL... My wife, had PFL and at the end Applied Underwriters should have provided us with a 1099G, but they provided us with a 1099-MISC which clearly has tax implications. You escalate it to them, they give you the run around before you can actually get an HONEST to GOODNESS answer. SO PLEASE beware of this company... next thing you know they will screw you up... clearly NOT satisfied. Don't get them as your PAYROLL company please please.. save yourself the hassle. read more

If it could be negative stars it would be. This company certainly doesn't represent what I believe Warren Buffet has been proud of over the years. They charge fees they won't justify or breakdown. They refuse to escalated any complaint to upper management and display an attitude when asked. I had my agent call and they stonewalled him as well. AT ALL COST, STAY AWAY FROM THIS COMPANY!!!! I'm going to the California Insurance commissioner Dave Jones for help. I attempted to cancel the policy and payroll program but they said it will cost me $8000 because of the 60 days left on the policy. CROOKS!!!!!! read more

If I could give it negative stars, it would be -5 Stars. They have the worse Customer Service I have EVER had with any establishment, including Fast Food. We had them both as an insurance provider and payroll service. I had no problems with their insurance. Working with the payroll agents was extremely frustrating on all levels (during our contractual agreement and after). All their fees are hidden and you cannot break them out yourself. God forbid you ask them to explain it to you, because they can't either. They have canned responses and are just talking heads when they can't answer the question. As a client/customer, all companies should provide you with copies of anything they file on your company's behalf (especially to the IRS or EDD). They will not. They are cold in their tone on the phone, to the point of being rude. When I asked them to provide me with a copy of what they sent to EDD, they said I needed something in writing from EDD requesting the information and they will send the information directly to EDD. WTH??? I then asked them to just verify the amount they filed, they said I need to send them something for EDD requesting the information and again they will communicate with EDD. What a bunch of BS! Once you sign on with them. they have control of EVERYTHING and getting any information from them is nearly impossible. Read all the reviews and decide for yourself. But mark my words, you will be very sorry if you sign up with them. It's like signing with the Devil. read more

We used AU for a few years to process payroll and Worker's Comp. They have an antiquated system to run payroll and are difficult to work with. We finally decided to switch providers in 2019. We completed all 2018 payroll through AU to keep the break clean. Today (6 days before the due date) we received a fax from AU stating they will not complete the 2018 payroll tax filings for the payrolls we ran through them. Despite the fact that they took on the liability and processed the payments, they were defaulting on their professional obligation. The representative I spoke to state "Rather than waist your time trying to get us to file it, you should spend time trying to figure out how to get the filing complete before the due date. I assure you, there is no way you will get us to file the forms." There are many other providers out there. I recommend using someone other than Applied. read more

Just started with this company. Their payroll department is not user friendly. Double taxing pay checks and not complete with the basics of payroll. Users beware. read more

We opted to go with AUW at the recommendation of our insurance agent. We had a worker's comp injury and it was just too cost prohibitive to obtain insurance in the commercial market so we opted to go with the workers comp. pool through AUW. We were locked in for a three year term and it was nothing short of a nightmare. There is zero transparency with this company and our once competitive wc rate was no longer competitive a year into the agreement. I found the fees to process payroll to be exorbitant. I was reluctant to enter into a relationship with AUW and I wished I had trusted my first instincts. Unless you are well versed with regards to loss pick containment calcs and loss ratios, your best bet would be to stay away from AUW. read more

I normally don't write reviews on Yelp, but Applied certainly deserves one. Read the fine-print before signing up for their workers' compensation/payroll program. Essentially they lure you in with cheap insurance, hiding most of the real cost in what they call "Package Service Fees" -- the cost of payroll AND employer taxes. They lump these together so you cannot determine what the cost of the payroll service is. It is exorbitant, thousands more per year than what you would pay with ADP or Paychex. Furthermore, they demand a 3-year contract, during which time you cannot cancel without being fined and penalized. They threaten that they'll hold you liable for the insurance claims of your group for the remainder of the contract. My company wanted out after a year, but we didn't want to face the penalties, nor challenge their legality in court. Once your contract ends, the fun continues. We were hit with several invoices for over five thousand dollars within the first four months of cancelling. The reason? As Applied Underwriters explained, there were outstanding claims on our last policy year from OTHER companies in our group. Now we're challenging these charges in arbitration. Word of warning: never sign up for insurance that lumps you in a group with others or demands a 3-year contract. There's zero transparency -- you will not know the dollar amounts of the claims of the other group members. You'll just be hit with a bill, which could very well be baseless. It is also suspicious that we did not incur such steep claim adjustments until AFTER our contract expired. If anyone has questions, I'd be happy to answer them. read more

We worked with Applied for a number of years, was not always sure of their business model, but was most impressed with a few of the employees we DID work with like Mitch in Customer Service and especially, Ken Muckey in underwriting. He is undoubtedly one of the most professional and honest underwriters I have ever worked with and that is a VERY LONG TIME... We did not use them for payroll, but only for Work Comp. Look them up, good people! read more

We have used their services for MANY years, we never even have to think about payroll, just send in the pay sheets and forget about it. Workers comp all calculated into it. They take care of claims, payroll questions answered immediately. Great customer service. Thank you! read more

Whoever came up with a five star rating is either rating a different company or was begged to write a good review to counterbalance all the one star ratings. They get you on the little things. The rate they charge for taxes and processing stays the same, even after you have met your state level tax maximums, they still keep collecting that and just keep it for themselves to bump their compensation. They charged us 4%, but as someone else said that number was rolled into a bulk local taxes % so you don't see it clearly every time. They did save us money on our worker's comp premiums, and if you are in a business with a high worker's comp rate, paying that every payroll period means you don't have to come up with $30K or more every quarter. You also don't get the surprise premium adjustment after an audit. But that is the only benefit. They are stuck in the 50s with old and unresponsive systems. Try reimbursing an employee for an expense outlay. They call that column deductions. So when you pay that person $50 to cover expense receipts it shows up as a negative on their pay stub. EVERY payroll I had to explain to the employees that we were not taking money out of their checks. Over several years, I asked numerous supervisors to change that column from deductions to adjustments, but they said no. They have no interest in modernizing or improving their systems. It's their way or the highway. read more

Horrible communication and they suck stay away from this company other payroll companies out there that are better

Worst workers comp insurance company ever. Absurd and unjustifiable LDF's used, very poor claim negotiation management results, poor communications. And huge additional charges towards the end of the contract to slam you with premiums related to the inflated LDF's arbitrarily assigned. If your broker recommends this company, change brokers. It is that bad. read more

Consider yourself INFORMED with this review. You are given a "composite rate" to use for payroll. You are also given many, many reports, but NONE of them will prove your taxes are paid (mine were) and none of them will tell you how much you pay in fees. But you can calculate it yourself. To illustrate: Say you are paid $4,000 2x/month and live in CA. Also assume your "composite rate" is 13.17%; when you pay yourself $4,000 on January 15th, you will actually pay AUW $4,000 + $526.80 (13.17%) = $4,526.80. Of that amount $306.00 (7.65%) is paid to S.S./Medicare, $24.00 to FUTA (0.6%), and $136.00 to CA Unemployment (3.4% my rate). That leaves $60.80 (1.52%) to AUW for their fees. That isn't horrible; it's not the greatest, but it isn't horrible. Now...here's the thing...when February 15th rolls around, you've exceeded the $7,000 ceiling for FUTA and CA Unemployment...so check this out... You pay $4,000.00 + $526.80. Of that $526.80, $306.00 (7.65%) goes to S.S./Medicare and $220.80 (5.52%) goes to AUW. The composite rate is NEVER adjusted. EVER. So at the end of the year, you've paid AUW over $5,300...FOR ONE EMPLOYEE. So my advice to you is to subtract 7.65% from whatever "composite rate" they offer you. THAT IS YOUR FEE. Then you can decide what you should do. No one else on here explains what they mean by HIGH FEES! Even a 10% composite rate has you paying 2.35% for payroll fees. That is a lot. One more thing. When you ask their agent what the fee is, they will tell you the rates are between 1% and 1.5% and have you look at the page where the composite rate is located. This checks out...until you exceed the unemployment threshold. Then when you call their payroll department to discuss this, THEY ARE RUDE times 100. "Well you signed [the contract]" is what you're told. Their employees must not be permitted to tell you the fee rates because when I confronted them, I was told "oh you figured that out???" as if he was surprised. Now consider yourself WARNED. read more

Literally the WORST payroll company I have ever dealt with. Constant mistakes, rude employees, and they are THE slowest people on the planet. Getting anything from them is like pulling teeth. And they are expensive! Avoid them. Go with paychex. read more

My experience with Applied Underwriters was awful. They hook new clients with competitve quotes for Workers' Comp insurance. What they do not tell you is that your employees cease to be your employees and as a result certain payroll taxes are charged for a second time. When it came to resolving the issue, their customer service accepted no responsibility. Eventually, we had to go to arbitration in order to force them to return payroll taxes that were not payable. One of the worst business experiences I have ever had. I would not recommend Applied Underwriters to anyone. read more

This is the most UNPROFESSIONAL company I have ever had to deal with! I give them 1 star just so I can post this otherwise, they get ZERO STARS!!!! The company I work for was swindled into this deal almost 3 years ago and I can't wait until we finish our contract with them! The insurance company we currently have for our auto and worker's comp swindled us into this company with a former employee. THREE YEARS of this BS with them is about to come to an end in June! What they do is take over your payroll and put you in a pool for worker's comp to make you think you are getting the best rate. Well, that rate is unknown because NO ONE can even tell you how much it is costing you for ANYTHING not even for their sorry payroll service. I can't believe they are in business! There has to be a commission to report them to. Not to mention all of the complaints we have had to make and dealing with multiple people who know nothing, can't tell you anything but want you to sign documents to cover their behinds. The latest and greatest is they took state taxes from one of our employees who lives in a state that doesn't have payroll state taxes. How did they calculate how much state tax to take from him? Well, here's the punchline, they used his Federal W4 Form to calculate state takes for the state the employer resides in which isn't the state in which the employee resides. Now, he's not the only employee we have that lives in a state that has no payroll state taxes so WHY did they take it upon themselves to do that? And here's the best part! They want us to sign a worker's comp form of "no known losses" to add the state the employee lives in (shouldn't they have done that when they added him to payroll?) and then they can file to get him reimbursed for the state taxes they took out! So why should we sign something to help them? They need to reimburse him on their own! If you have an agent or broker you are working with, DO NOT let them swindle you into using Applied Underwriters (aka SolutionsOne) as your worker's comp company. IT IS A SCAM! read more

I give -5 STARS!!! THE WORST COMPANY EVER!! AVOID THEM AVOID THEM!! I have been with AU for 2 years now and it has been a total nightmare!!! i tried to get my EDD balance as well as how much they are charging me for payroll service i called and after rude and almost imposible customer service, long holds, and transfers between one another, NOTHING!!! THEY SAID THAT THEY COULDNT GIVE ME ANY INFORMATION!!! i asked them why? and said that that information is mine by right, i should know whats going on with my account and were my money is going because they are very EXPENSIVE, they said and i quote " yeah... so... no i cant give you any infomation..." i was beyond enraged, I told them that i was not happy with their service and they said nothing not even a sorry!!! i couldnt belive the shadiness of these people, i hope i can get away from this company soon and go to a better one, i hope nobody has to deal with them ever... read more

1) They do not save money 2) They consider the fax machine essential for communication 3) Sometimes the payroll does not get done or is done improperly 4) Their workforce is unmotivated. Luckily I haven't had a claim against their workers' compensation insurance as I do not think that would go smoothly. You can't go wrong picking another company. read more

I have been with this company for over 3 years and they are HORRIBLE. When I first started with them they made claims they were moving into this century but that was a lie. The employees at Applied don't even have access to email. Everything is done by hand on the employer end and faxed in like it is 1990. Not one person is accountable. The employees will tell you they do not have supervisors if you ask to talk to them. A client paying this kind of money for WC and payroll services should not have to follow up with them on everything from garnishments to direct deposit forms submitted and not processed. They seem like a good deal at first but they do not stop charging the amount for some of the employer paid taxes that should be capped out when an employee hits 7k...they keep charging it throughout the year. I would not recommend this company to an enemy. Instead of making your life easier they do the exact opposite. read more