Contractor insurance requirements by state

Required for the license, or required by law?

Every row below answers one narrow question, and it helps to know which before quoting it.

A condition of the license is a different question from a legal duty. North Carolina’s Licensing Board for General Contractors says in its FAQ, retrieved September 5, 2026: “There is not an insurance requirement for licensing.” That is a fact about the NCLBGC license, not about North Carolina’s Workers’ Compensation Act.

The Board’s very next answer says workers’ compensation “is required by NC state laws” and sends readers to the Industrial Commission. Two agencies, two statutes, two registers. One cell marked “required” for both could not be checked against either.

The difference matters in practice. If cover is a condition of the license, the board took evidence of it at least once (an affidavit, a certificate, a surety rider) and holds a record, even if it is not public.

If it is only an employment-law duty, nobody at the board checked it when the license was issued.

The matrix below records only the first question: what the residential general-contractor (or city) credential itself requires. Workers’ comp as general employment law is covered in the Texas section, where it is unusual, and in the North Carolina and Arizona notes. A “not verified” cell is not a “no.”

What the dollar floors are, and what they are not

A statutory minimum is the least the law accepts to issue or renew the credential.

It is not advice, not an estimate of the damage a kitchen remodel can do, and not the limit a lender or general contractor will accept. $100,000 of liability cover is not “enough” because a board rule says so: the rule answers a licensing question, not a risk question.

Florida. Fla. Stat. §489.115(5)(a) requires, before a license is issued or renewed, an affidavit of workers’ comp under chapter 440, public liability insurance and property damage insurance “in amounts determined by rule of the board.”

That rule is Florida Administrative Code 61G4-15.003, effective November 15, 2007, and still the adopted rule on flrules.org when we checked. Cornell LII’s copy lists general and building contractors at $300,000 public liability and $50,000 property damage.

Residential, roofing, plumbing, mechanical, sheet metal, pool, solar, underground utility and “specialty contractors, unless specified otherwise” are at $100,000 / $25,000. The certificate holder is DBPR’s Construction Industry Licensing Board, not you. DBPR’s own FAQ restates both tiers. The public license search does not show the policy.

California. BPC §7071.6 requires a $25,000 contractor’s bond to issue, reinstate, reactivate, renew or keep a license (operative January 1, 2023, SB 607). CSLB’s bond page, retrieved September 5, 2026, names who it protects: consumers harmed by defective work or license-law violations, and unpaid employees.

There is a catch. BPC §7071.6(b) caps the surety’s total liability on claims from anyone other than the §7071.5 beneficiaries at $7,500. Anyone quoting “$25,000 of protection” misses that.

CGL is not in §7071.6. It is a CSLB condition only for LLC licensees, under BPC §7071.19: $1 million aggregate for five or fewer members of record, plus $100,000 per extra member, up to $5 million. For everyone else, CSLB says CGL “is not required.”

Arizona. A.R.S. §32-1152 requires a surety bond or cash deposit before the registrar issues a license, and no renewal without it in force. A.A.C. R4-9-112 sets residential general at $9,000 below $750,000 contemplated annual volume and $15,000 at or above; residential specialty is $4,250 / $7,500 at a $375,000 break.

Dual-license bonds combine the commercial and residential schedules. Residential contractors also join the recovery fund or post an extra $200,000 bond (A.R.S. §32-1152(C)). We found no ROC rule making CGL a license condition, so that cell is not verified, which does not mean Arizona contractors go uninsured.

Nevada. NRS 624.270 requires a surety bond or cash deposit before a license issues, in an amount the Board sets “with reference to the contractor’s financial and professional responsibility and the magnitude of the contractor’s operations,” from $1,000 to $500,000.

The bond is continuous, and total liability stays capped at the face amount however many years it runs.

NRS 624.256 separately requires proof of industrial insurance for employees, a self-insurance or association certificate, or an affidavit that the applicant has no employees and does not work or bid as a subcontractor. Failing to keep it is cause to deny, revoke, suspend or refuse renewal. CGL is in neither section.

Utah. Utah Code §58-55-302(2)(b) requires licensed contractors to file proof of public liability insurance in amounts set by rule.

The rule text we retrieved (R156-55a-302d, via Cornell LII) requires a certificate naming the Division, covering the scope of work, in force while the license is active, “in coverage amounts of at least $100,000 for each incident and $300,000 in total.”

A 2026 amendment cycle changes that. A March 30, 2026, change described in a May 2026 proposed-rule filing moved the total first to $3 million, then, as proposed, to $1 million per incident and $2 million in total.

The adopted rule page on adminrules.utah.gov did not load for us. Confirm the live floor with DOPL. The requirement exists; the number is moving.

North Carolina. The NCLBGC FAQ, retrieved September 5, 2026, answers “What are the insurance requirements?” with: “There is not an insurance requirement for licensing. However, there may be insurance requirements for individual projects or for pulling building permits.” It adds that bonds are needed only when used instead of the minimum financial requirements.

21 NCAC 12A .0204(e) sets those bonds at $175,000 (limited), $500,000 (intermediate) and $1,000,000 (unlimited). They replace a working-capital showing; they are not CGL or workers’ comp. The $40,000 project value that decides whether an NCLBGC license is needed at all (N.C.G.S. §87-1) means a kitchen under that line is not a licensed-and-therefore-insured job.

What the public can see on each board

A requirement and a public record are different facts. Florida requires CGL by statute and hides the policy from its license search.

California does not require CGL of most licensees but shows the bond and workers’ comp on every detail page we stored.

Treat either lookup as a full insurance file and you will be wrong in both states.

California, CSLB Check a License. A detail page shows the business name, address, entity type, dates, status, classes, the contractor’s bond (surety, number, amount: $25,000 on 4,816 of our 4,820 records) and workers’ comp (carrier and policy dates, or a filed exemption). CSLB’s data portal can include bond and workers’ comp in a bulk download.

CGL is not on the standard record. CSLB tells you to ask for a certificate or the carrier’s name, and says the information is on the license history page, which holds for LLC filings under §7071.19 but not for a sole-owner license.

We stored CGL on 0 of 4,820 California records because there was no CGL field to capture: a fact about the board’s design, not about California remodelers.

Florida, DBPR Verify a Licensee (Board 06). The public search returns class (Certified Building, Certified Residential), status, qualifier and county. No CGL policy number, workers’ comp carrier or bond. Fla. Stat. §489.115(5)(a) has the board check insurance affidavits “based upon a random sample method.” The public is not in that sample.

Our store flags CGL as required by statute on 6,936 of 7,130 Florida records (4,580 Certified Building and 2,356 Certified Residential) and as unknown on 194 Certified Residential records. The flag reads §489.115 against a live license; it is not a copy of the policy. The 194 unknowns are missing retrieval, not 194 uninsured contractors.

Arizona, ROC contractor search. The public search endpoint we queried returned license number, class, status and city. Bond, CGL and workers’ comp are stored as unknown on all 4,932 records.

ROC’s bond page explains the requirement; it is not a per-license lookup. To see a named firm’s bond, use whatever the live ROC detail view shows; we did not capture that field.

Nevada, NSCB Contractor Listing Search. The listing shows license, class and monetary limit. Bond appears on some detail records: we stored a named surety and amount on 120 of 3,494 (3.4%). Industrial insurance and CGL were unknown on all 3,494.

Those 120 bonds run from $2,000 (11 records) through $5,000 (23), $10,000 (31), $15,000 (30), $20,000 (7), $30,000 (12), $50,000 (3) and $100,000 (3), within NRS 624.270’s $1,000–$500,000 range.

That is not a census of Nevada bonds. The 3,374 records with no bond in our store are a capture gap: NRS 624.270 makes the bond a condition of the license.

Utah, DOPL. Our stored record has license, class, status and, uniquely in this snapshot, disciplinary actions (32 of 703 records). No Utah record has a bond, CGL or workers’ comp field, though DOPL requires all three. Check a current DOPL detail page and a certificate; do not read our empty fields as empty cover.

North Carolina, NCLBGC public search. License, limitation and classification. Bond, CGL and workers’ comp are unknown on all 149 records, which fits the Board’s statement that licensing carries no insurance requirement. A firm that posted a .0204(e) working-capital bond may have it on file with the Board; we did not capture it.

Texas, TDLR. No general-contractor register. San Antonio’s Contractor Connect and El Paso’s Accela are the public records we hold, and they show registration, not a named policy. TDI’s TXCOMP confirms workers’ comp for a named employer, not CGL.

What our seven-state store shows

The seven-state count is our calculation, not a board statistic. We opened every license file in data/remodeling-data/licenses/ (22,183 records, measured September 5, 2026) and sorted the bond, workers’ comp and liability fields into shown, required by rule, exempt, or not shown.

“Shown” means a named surety, a named carrier, a filed exemption or an explicit required-by-statute flag.

The bars show what the public records in our store contain, titled to these seven states, not who is insured. California leads the “shown” counts because CSLB publishes bond and workers’ comp.

Florida leads the CGL flag because we read §489.115 against each license. Arizona, Utah and North Carolina fill the empty cells because their public data, as captured, did not carry the fields.

Across the store, 4,936 records show a named bond (4,816 California, all $25,000; 120 Nevada, Board-set amounts). 2,139 show a named workers’ comp carrier and 2,625 a no-employee exemption, all in California.

17,243 show neither a bond nor workers’ comp: 7,130 Florida, 4,932 Arizona, 3,374 Nevada, 955 Texas, 703 Utah, 149 North Carolina. None store a named CGL carrier and policy number. 7,086 carry a required-by-statute or by-rule CGL flag (6,936 Florida, 150 El Paso).

Only in California can you answer two of the three questions from the public record without asking the contractor. Of 4,820 CSLB records, 4,816 show the $25,000 bond (four have no bond entry), 2,139 a named carrier, 2,625 an exemption, and 56 no workers’ comp entry.

Among bonded records, 2,623 pair the bond with an exemption and 2,137 with a carrier; two show an exemption and two a carrier with no bond entry. CGL stays unpublished.

A California check that stops at “licensed and bonded” has confirmed the $25,000 surety and nothing about the policy that would pay to rebuild the kitchen.

What the stored public record contains, by instrument, measured September 5, 2026. A zero bar means a board did not publish the field or we did not capture the detail page. It is not a count of uninsured firms.

Disciplinary records are filled in only for Utah in this snapshot. An empty discipline field elsewhere is missing retrieval, not a clean record, and the same goes for insurance fields.

How to read a certificate of insurance

A certificate of insurance is the document you can actually use. The standard US form is the ACORD 25, Certificate of Liability Insurance: a snapshot, prepared by an agent or insurer, of policies that existed when it was printed. It is not the policy, and it does not change the policy. Read it that way.

Date and producer. The date is when the form was prepared, not when cover began. A certificate from last spring, for a job starting this month, is history. The producer (agent or broker) is who to call, so call them. Do not accept a certificate the contractor made in a PDF editor.

Named insured. It must match the legal name on your contract and, where a license exists, on the license.

A policy for “Mike’s Kitchens LLC” does not cover “Mike’s Kitchens,” a sole proprietorship, without an endorsement.

Match it to the CSLB business name in California, the DBPR qualifier’s business in Florida, and the city registration and state entity record in Texas.

Insurer and policy number. A real CGL policy has a carrier authorized in that state and a policy number. “Self-insured” on the CGL line with no excess policy is not CGL.

Workers’ comp should name a carrier, a state fund or a certified self-insurer. In Texas it may lawfully name nothing if the employer is a non-subscriber, which you can check with TDI.

Limits, as three numbers. Each occurrence is what one incident can pay. The general aggregate is the year’s total.

The products-completed operations aggregate is what it can pay after the crew leaves: the leak that appears in November from a June job. $1,000,000 per occurrence with $0 completed operations answers a different question from the one a remodel asks.

Florida’s $300,000 / $50,000 floor for a building contractor is liability-and-property-damage wording from a 2007 board rule. It is not a completed-operations figure, and it is not advice.

Policy dates. The job must fall inside the policy period. A policy expiring Friday on a job that runs through next month has to renew, and renewals can fail. Ask for a certificate dated the week you sign, and another the week work starts if those are far apart.

Description of operations and locations. If it is blank, the certificate describes a policy, not your job. If it names a different address, it may describe different work. Additional-insured endorsements can be limited to the operations listed here.

Cancellation. The cancellation box can say the insurer “will endeavor” to give notice. That is not a promise to tell you before the policy ends. The only reliable notice is an endorsement the insurer has issued, or a call to the carrier with the policy number.

Our advice, not a statute: have the insurer or producer email the certificate to you directly, not through the contractor, and confirm the policy number with the carrier.

San Antonio and El Paso require the city as certificate holder on a registration; that protects the city’s permit process, not your kitchen, and ends when the policy does.

Additional insured vs certificate holder

Two boxes on an ACORD 25 get treated as one. They are not the same.

Certificate holder is whoever the agent typed in the bottom-left box so a copy would be addressed to them. It gives you a piece of paper.

It does not make you an insured, give you a right to a defense, or require the insurer to tell you about a cancellation unless a separate endorsement says so.

Florida’s rule 61G4-15.003 makes DBPR’s Construction Industry Licensing Board the certificate holder on the licensing certificate. That listing serves the Board and does nothing for you.

Additional insured is a person or organization the policy has been amended to cover, for liability from the named insured’s work and, if the endorsement says so, completed work.

The amendment is an endorsement to the policy, not words on a certificate. If the certificate says “additional insured” but the endorsement is not on the policy, the certificate is wrong.

ISO’s standard CGL forms separate two endorsements: ongoing operations (CG 20 10) and completed operations (CG 20 37). The first covers you while the crew is in the house; the second after they leave, for damage from the work. Additional insured “as respects ongoing operations” says nothing about the leak in November.

Primary and non-contributory wording, and a waiver of subrogation, are more endorsements, not defaults. The first tries to make the contractor’s policy pay before yours.

The second stops the contractor’s insurer from pursuing you after it pays. Neither comes from being a certificate holder or from a licensing rule; each exists only if the insurer issued it.

This is where a licensing minimum and your real protection part ways. California does not require CGL of most licensees, so no CSLB form names you. Florida names the Board. San Antonio names the city. Everywhere, the way to become an additional insured is to ask for it in the contract and see the endorsement.

A contractor who refuses is not necessarily uninsured; they are declining to extend their policy to you. That is not a licensing violation in North Carolina, in Texas, or with CSLB for a non-LLC in California. It can still be a reason to hire someone else.

How we built this study

The question: for residential general contracting, what do state boards (and the city registers that exist in Texas) require as a condition of the credential in liability insurance, workers’ comp and a license bond; at what limit; whether proof is filed; and whether the public can see it.

Second, from our store: how often a bond, a workers’ comp filing, or neither actually appears on the records we hold.

Every requirement falls into one of three categories: verified required, verified not required as a license condition, or not verified. An unchecked cell never shows as “no.”

Workers’ comp as employment law is noted in prose where it is unusual (Texas, elective) or where a board separates it from the license (North Carolina). It is not merged into the matrix.

Store counts come from a full pass over 22,183 license files in data/remodeling-data/licenses/, measured September 5, 2026. A bond is “shown” when the record has a carrier, number or amount (California) or another non-empty value that is not a required-by-rule flag (Nevada).

Workers’ comp counts as a carrier when a carrier is named, and as an exemption when the exemption is filed. A required-by-rule CGL flag is not counted as a named policy. San Antonio’s on-file flags are reported separately from named policies.

Nothing here comes from an insurance-agency round-up. Dollar floors come from the statute, the board rule, the board’s FAQ or the city page.

Utah’s live CGL floor is marked as changing: the rule text we retrieved says $100,000 / $300,000, a 2026 amendment proposed $1 million / $2 million, and we could not load the adopted rule, so we will not pick a number from a blog.