What is total number of employees and contractors? How many working remotely?
Headcount sizes the attack surface. The remote proportion determines which of your controls actually apply to it.
What the carrier is actually asking
The carrier wants total employees and contractors, and how many work remotely. It uses headcount as a scale factor and the remote proportion as an indicator of where your controls need to operate.
Why it is underwritten
Each person is an account, a device, and a phishing target. A largely remote workforce means network-based controls cover little and identity and endpoint controls carry everything, which changes how the rest of the submission should be read.
Where the answer lives in Microsoft 365, Entra ID, and Azure
Headcount comes from human resources, and the directory provides a useful cross-check that frequently disagrees.
| Platform | Where the setting lives | What has to be true |
|---|---|---|
| HR records | Employee and contractor headcount | Both populations counted, since contractors hold access and are often excluded from headcount. Attested |
| Entra ID | Enabled accounts compared with the workforce figure | A reconciliation, since a directory substantially larger than the workforce indicates stale accounts |
| Working pattern | Remote, hybrid, and office-based proportions | An honest split, since hybrid is the common reality and it means devices leave the network regularly |
| Microsoft 365 | Device enrolment coverage against headcount | Whether managed devices roughly match the workforce, which is a reality check on endpoint coverage |
| Consistency | Licence counts and training completion denominators | Consistency with the other answers that use headcount as a denominator |
If the directory holds substantially more enabled accounts than you have people, the difference is stale accounts, service accounts, and guests. That comparison answers this question and improves the orphaned account answer at the same time.
What a defensible yes requires
- Employees and contractors are both counted and distinguished.
- The remote and hybrid split is stated honestly.
- The figure reconciles with enabled directory accounts.
- Device management coverage is consistent with headcount.
- Other headcount-derived answers on the form use the same denominator.
How this answer goes wrong
Contractors are excluded from headcount and included in the directory, so the account population exceeds the reported workforce by a third with no explanation. It also means the training and endpoint coverage percentages were calculated against the wrong denominator.
Frequently asked
Do contractors count?
For risk purposes yes, because they hold access. Count them separately so the figure is accurate and the exposure is visible.
Does remote work increase premium?
Not usually on its own. It shifts which controls matter, and carriers look for device management and identity controls to carry the weight.
What counts as remote?
Anyone working outside a corporate network regularly, which includes hybrid workers. Report the practical reality rather than the formal policy.
Why does the directory disagree?
Service accounts, guests, shared mailboxes, and stale accounts. Explaining the difference is a useful exercise regardless of the application.
Related questions
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