Dino Carbone, Co-founder

Workers' compensation billing tends to break down not when a policy is written, but months later, when estimated payroll collides with the reality of how most businesses operate. Businesses project payroll at the start of a policy period, only to reconcile the actual exposure through audits that can trigger unexpected premium adjustments under compressed timelines. That dynamic disrupts cash flow for business owners, strains agent relationships at renewal, and adds billing and collection burden for insurance carriers.

SmartPay Solutions was built to avoid that breakdown by taking ownership of payroll-based premium calculation and billing. Building on traditional billing challenges, it doesn’t treat billing accuracy as only an end-of-term reconciliation exercise. Instead, the company uses a pay-as-you-go model that aligns workers’ compensation premiums directly with payroll as it is processed. Exposure and billing remain synchronized in real time.

Through this ongoing model, SmartPay has become one of the most established market leader in pay-as-you-go billing and a specialist in the insurance premium billing space. The company’s platform manages how premiums are calculated, collected, and remitted by integrating directly with more than 85 insurance carriers and programs and over 400 payroll companies. Today, it supports thousands of agents and tens of thousands of business owners through a payroll-connected billing infrastructure built to execute reliably across the insurance environment.

This approach has earned SmartPay recognition as the Insurance Pay-As-You-Go Solutions of the Year, reflecting its role in standardizing payroll-aligned premium billing at scale.

“Workers’ compensation is often a mandatory or required coverage, and the best systems are the ones that make premium payments for it as seamless as possible,” says Dino Carbone, co-founder. “Our focus has always been on building a billing process that works consistently for all parties involved.”

Centralizing Premium Billing Around Payroll Activity

SmartPay’s operating model is built around a single governing responsibility: ensuring premiums reflect actual exposure throughout the policy period. Under its pay-as-you-go model, workers’ compensation premiums are calculated using real payroll data each time payroll is processed, replacing projections with continuous alignment between exposure and billing.

“With pay-as-you-go, a business owner pays their workers’ comp premium based on the actual payroll that they run every pay period, whether it’s weekly, biweekly, or semi-monthly,” says Carbone. “So it’s a much more cash flow-friendly process.”

This approach reduces audit-driven surprises, stabilizes billing for business owners, and improves retention for agents and carriers. Policies operating on pay-as-you-go billing typically see retention increase by two to four percent. For insurance carriers, transferring billing execution to SmartPay also reduces internal billing and collection costs by approximately two to three percent.

At SmartPay, this responsibility is executed through a fully automated workflow that processes payroll data, calculates premiums, collects payments, and remits funds directly to carriers each pay period.

Premium Calculation, Collection, and Security

When a carrier sets up a policy on SmartPay’s platform, policy data is securely pulled from the insurer’s policy administration system to establish the account. The platform then connects directly with payroll providers to receive payroll data as it is generated.

Once payroll runs, it calculates the premium for the pay period, notifies the business owner, and collects payment via ACH or credit card. Funds are then remitted directly to the insurance carrier, removing the need for carriers to manage ongoing billing and collection activities internally.

Because SmartPay assumes responsibility for premium billing execution, security and compliance are treated as operational requirements rather than features. The company is SOC 2 compliant and does not retain personally identifiable information. It works with many of the top 50 insurance companies that write workers’ compensation, operating under strict security and service-level expectations.

Partnership as an Operating Discipline

SmartPay approaches partnerships as an operating responsibility. The company builds and runs its billing platform internally, with product development and customer support handled by in-house teams. That structure allows it to maintain direct control over execution, responsiveness, and system reliability across payroll cycles and policy periods.

Because pay-as-you-go billing sits at the intersection of payroll processing, carrier systems, and customer cash flow, SmartPay’s team brings together experience across insurance operations, payroll integration, technology, and finance. This cross-functional ownership enables the platform to adapt to the operational requirements of different carriers, agents, and payroll partners without forcing them into a single standardized workflow.

That flexibility has become a differentiator in carrier-agent relationships. Instead of treating implementation as a one-time setup, SmartPay operates as an ongoing billing partner, adjusting processes as programs evolve and initiatives change. Over time, this consistency has led carriers and agents to rely on SmartPay for both technology and sustained billing execution across policy portfolios.

“We’re obsessed with being a strong partner,” says Carbone. “It’s not just about the technology. How we work with insurance companies, agents, and payroll partners is a big part of why people choose to work with us.”

Carrier Onboarding and Account Transition Capability

SmartPay’s operating model has repeatedly proven capable of supporting partner onboarding without disrupting existing billing structures. In some instances, a business owner evaluating a move to a new insurance carrier made continued use of SmartPay’s pay-as-you-go billing a condition of the transition.

Although it had not previously worked with the carrier, SmartPay’s intuitive platform enabled policy setup and onboarding within weeks, allowing the account to transfer while preserving payroll-aligned billing. The policy carried an annual premium exceeding one million dollars, highlighting how accurate, continuously aligned billing becomes increasingly critical as policy size and exposure scale.

After the initial onboarding, the same carrier went on to place hundreds of additional accounts onto SmartPay’s platform. Rather than a one-off accommodation, the transition demonstrated that its billing operations become embedded once carriers consistently rely on the platform to support payroll-driven policies.

With similar onboarding patterns occurring across its carrier network, SmartPay has continued to expand its business. The company is profitable and growing at more than 30 percent annually, reflecting sustained adoption driven by operational reliability in contrast to short-term deployment.

Expansion into Variable-Exposure Insurance Lines

Looking ahead, SmartPay is extending its billing operations beyond workers’ compensation to other insurance lines in which premiums are based on variable exposure during the policy period. These include exposures tied to payroll, sales, or insured values that fluctuate over time.

This expansion follows the same operating logic that defines its workers’ compensation model: aligning premium billing directly with real business activity and assuming responsibility for execution. The company is actively developing new products and programs with existing and future partners through 2026 and beyond.

SmartPay is also evaluating how advances in technology, including the responsible use of AI, can further improve billing accuracy, efficiency, and reliability.

By operating premium billing in step with actual exposure, SmartPay positions itself as the accountable billing platform for variable-exposure insurance, focused on making premium payment predictable, accurate, and operationally sound for everyone involved.