Insurance, Bonding and Why It Matters for Your Building

A commercial cleaning contractor enters your building after hours, often with master key access. The operational risk is real and it transfers to you if you do not verify coverage before the first clean.

General Liability Insurance

General liability insurance covers property damage and bodily injury arising from the contractor's operations. If a cleaning crew breaks a piece of equipment, floods a floor, or causes a slip injury in a freshly mopped area, the contractor's general liability policy is the first line of response.

What to ask for: a certificate of insurance naming your company or property address, with policy limits you can verify against your lease or building requirements. Do not accept a verbal assurance of coverage. The certificate is a one-page document that takes the contractor 10 minutes to produce; if they cannot produce it, they may not have it.

Bonding

A commercial cleaning bond (also called a janitorial bond or fidelity bond) is a surety instrument that provides a mechanism for recourse if an employee steals from your facility. It is not insurance — it does not cover accidental damage. It specifically addresses dishonesty by employees of the contractor.

Bonding matters because commercial cleaning crews have unsupervised access to your facility. A bonded contractor has had its employees background-checked as a condition of the bond and has a financial backstop if an employee acts dishonestly. Bonding documentation, like a certificate of insurance, should be available on request.

Workers Compensation

Workers compensation is the coverage that most facility managers overlook. If a cleaning crew member is injured at your facility and the contractor does not carry workers comp, your facility's liability exposure may extend to the injured worker's medical and lost-wage claims. Minnesota requires workers compensation for most employers, but uninsured or underinsured cleaning operators exist in this market.

Verify this separately from general liability. They are different policies and the certificate for one does not confirm the other.

What Happens If You Skip Verification

Most of the time, nothing. An unverified contractor cleans your facility without incident and the gap in your due diligence is never tested. The risk is in the tail: a property damage claim where the contractor has no policy to pay it, or an injured worker where the liability defaults to you. The cost of a certificate of insurance is zero. The cost of those outcomes is not.

Our Coverage

We carry general liability insurance, are bonded, and carry workers compensation. A certificate of insurance is included with every written quote. See our Insured & Bonded page for more detail.