Brett, you are including payroll in that, I assume. My rates went up 21%) this year, as did most all insurance costs, I think- directly related to 9/11 and other major casualty losses.
I pay $4800 base rate, that is appx half for one truck/chipper, the rest general liability and equipment. It is based on 34000/yr payroll. 17000 of that is considered my owner's salary. This goes up by about $75 per additional $1000 of paid payroll.
Knock on wood, I have never turned in a claim, or been involved in one (when I was an employee) in 30 yrs of tree work. It seems, every few years, we've had something happen that costs over $300 to repair, but I'd rather pay it out of pocket than have a mark on the company record. Worst was the $700 to fix a roof. I was routinely chunking down a small fir in 4-5 foot long pieces, and thinking ahead to the next piece or where I was going to stop (making a droppable, saleable log) . I had my hand on the wood in the wrong place and cut through sloppily. It fell sideways out of my grip onto the roof, and separated enough of it to require that a fairly large section on 3 tab be removed in order to replace two plywood sheets. Customer's wife was inside and rather surprised by the crash. Happened two blocks from home, lots of good customer's in the area, but even my customer was not too displeased- lucky me. A friend had it fixed the next day.