The Florida Janitorial Company Insurance Checklist: What Coverage Do You Really Need?

Running a janitorial company may seem straightforward. You hire a crew, buy cleaning supplies, secure customer contracts, and get to work.

However, the risks behind that work are anything but simple.

An employee could slip while cleaning a customer’s building. A floor machine could damage an expensive surface. A worker could cause an accident while driving between jobs. Someone could steal property from a customer’s office. Even a common cleaning chemical could create a serious liability claim.

That is why Florida janitorial company insurance should involve more than buying a general liability policy and requesting a certificate of insurance.

Your insurance program should reflect how your company actually operates.

Who works for you? What do you clean? Where do employees work? What chemicals do they use? Who drives between jobs? Do employees have access to customer property? Do you use subcontractors?

Those questions help determine where your company could lose money.

Let’s walk through the major coverages every Florida janitorial company should consider.

What Insurance Does a Florida Janitorial Company Need?

There is no single insurance policy that covers every exposure a janitorial company faces.

Instead, most businesses need several policies or coverage forms working together.

Depending on your operation, your insurance program may include:

• Commercial general liability
• Workers’ compensation
• Commercial auto
• Hired and non-owned auto liability
• Commercial property
• Inland marine
• Crime or employee dishonesty coverage
• Janitorial service bonds
• Umbrella or excess liability
• Pollution or environmental liability
• Cyber liability
• Employment practices liability
• Business income coverage

However, that does not mean every janitorial company needs the same policies or limits.

A company with three employees cleaning small offices has different exposures than a company with 75 employees cleaning hospitals, schools, and industrial facilities.

Therefore, your insurance program should start with your operation, not with an insurance quote.

1. Commercial General Liability Insurance

General liability is one of the foundation pieces of a janitorial company’s insurance program.

Your employees work inside buildings owned or occupied by other people. As a result, there are plenty of opportunities for bodily injury or property damage claims.

For example, imagine an employee mops a lobby floor. A customer walks through the area, slips, falls, and suffers a serious injury.

Now consider another scenario. An employee uses the wrong chemical on an expensive stone floor. The product damages the finish, and the building owner wants the entire floor restored.

Those are two very different accidents. Yet both could create liability claims against your company.

Other common exposures may include:

• Water damage
• Damaged furniture
• Broken equipment
• Scratched flooring
• Chemical damage
• Slip-and-fall allegations
• Damage to customer property

A commercial general liability policy may respond to certain covered third-party bodily injury and property damage claims. However, exclusions and policy conditions still apply.

Therefore, simply having a general liability policy does not guarantee that every claim will be covered.

We will explore general liability insurance for Florida janitorial companies in greater detail in the next article in this series.

2. Workers’ Compensation Insurance

Your employees are one of your company’s most important assets. They may also represent one of its largest exposures.

Janitorial work can be physically demanding.

Employees lift equipment, bend repeatedly, work on wet surfaces, use chemicals, climb ladders, and move between customer locations.

Common injuries may include:

• Back strains
• Shoulder injuries
• Slips and falls
• Cuts
• Chemical exposure
• Repetitive motion injuries
• Lifting injuries
• Falls from ladders

Florida generally requires non-construction employers with four or more employees to carry workers’ compensation insurance. However, entity structure, exemptions, and other circumstances can affect how the requirement applies.

Meeting the legal requirement is only the beginning.

Your payroll, employee classifications, claims history, and experience modification factor can affect workers’ compensation costs.

Claims management matters too.

A strong safety program can help prevent injuries. Likewise, an effective return-to-work program can help control the financial impact after an injury occurs.

Business owners should also pay close attention to how employees are classified.

Payroll placed in the wrong workers’ compensation classification can create problems during an audit. In addition, uninsured subcontractors may create unexpected exposure.

We will examine workers’ compensation for Florida janitorial companies later in this series.

3. Commercial Auto Insurance

Do you own vehicles that employees use to travel between cleaning locations?

If so, commercial auto insurance should be part of your insurance review.

Janitorial companies may use vehicles to transport:

• Employees
• Floor machines
• Cleaning supplies
• Chemicals
• Tools
• Other equipment

A serious automobile accident can quickly become one of the largest claims your business faces.

In addition, business owners should not assume a personal auto policy will properly cover every type of business use.

The more employees drive for the company, the more important driver management becomes.

That includes reviewing motor vehicle records, setting driver standards, maintaining vehicles, and creating rules for distracted driving.

Insurance is important. However, preventing the accident in the first place is even better.

4. Hired and Non-Owned Auto Liability

Your company does not have to own vehicles to have an automobile exposure.

For example, an employee may use a personal vehicle to drive from one customer location to another.

What happens if that employee causes a serious accident?

That is where hired and non-owned auto liability becomes important.

In general, hired auto exposures involve certain vehicles the business rents, leases, or borrows. Non-owned auto exposures can involve vehicles the business does not own but employees use for company business.

This exposure is easy to overlook.

A janitorial company may own no vehicles at all. However, dozens of employees could still drive their personal vehicles for work every week.

We will address commercial auto insurance for janitorial companies, including hired and non-owned auto exposure, in a dedicated article.

5. Commercial Property and Inland Marine Coverage

Janitorial companies often invest heavily in equipment.

That equipment may include:

• Floor buffers
• Carpet extractors
• Vacuums
• Pressure washers
• Computers
• Cleaning machines
• Specialized tools
• Cleaning supplies

Commercial property insurance may protect certain property at an insured location.

However, janitorial equipment often moves.

A floor machine might be at your warehouse today and inside a customer’s building tomorrow.

That mobility matters.

Depending on the policy and operation, inland marine coverage may provide protection for certain tools and equipment while they move between locations.

Therefore, review both where your equipment is stored and where employees use it.

You should also maintain an updated equipment inventory. Include serial numbers, purchase dates, and replacement values when possible.

6. Employee Theft, Crime Insurance, and Janitorial Bonds

Janitorial employees often work in places that other businesses would consider highly restricted.

They may have access to:

• Customer keys
• Alarm codes
• Access cards
• Offices
• Warehouses
• Computers
• Inventory
• Cash
• Personal property

In some cases, employees may work after the customer’s employees have gone home.

That creates a unique trust exposure.

Unfortunately, theft allegations can occur.

Crime or employee dishonesty coverage may protect the business against certain dishonest acts, depending on how the policy is written.

Janitorial service bonds may also be required by customers or used to provide additional reassurance.

However, crime insurance and janitorial bonds are not necessarily the same thing.

The coverage, parties involved, triggers, and limits may differ.

Therefore, business owners should understand exactly what protection they purchased rather than assuming the word “bonded” means every theft situation is covered.

We will break down employee theft and janitorial service bonds in Article #6 of this series.

7. Umbrella and Excess Liability

Most liability policies have limits.

Unfortunately, serious accidents do not care what limits you purchased.

Imagine an employee driving a company vehicle causes a multi-vehicle accident with several serious injuries.

The resulting claim could exceed the company’s underlying commercial auto limit.

Umbrella or excess liability coverage can provide additional limits above certain underlying policies.

Those policies may include:

• Commercial general liability
• Commercial auto liability
• Employers liability

However, an umbrella policy is not a magic safety net.

It does not automatically cover every exclusion found in an underlying policy. Therefore, the underlying policies and umbrella should be reviewed together.

For larger janitorial companies, this becomes especially important when customer contracts require higher liability limits.

8. Pollution and Environmental Liability

Cleaning companies work with chemicals every day.

That creates another important exposure.

Consider what could happen if an employee:

• Spills a cleaning chemical
• Mixes incompatible chemicals
• Creates dangerous fumes
• Damages property with a chemical
• Improperly disposes of a chemical
• Causes chemical runoff
• Exposes building occupants to hazardous substances

Some business owners assume their general liability policy will cover any resulting bodily injury or property damage claim.

That assumption can be dangerous.

Commercial general liability policies can contain pollution exclusions that may restrict or eliminate coverage for certain pollution-related events.

Therefore, janitorial companies should review their chemical exposure carefully.

They should also maintain proper Safety Data Sheets, employee training, labeling, storage procedures, and spill-response protocols.

Insurance should support those controls rather than replace them.

We will explore cleaning chemical insurance risks and pollution exposure later in this series.

9. Cyber Liability

You may be thinking, “Why would anyone hack a cleaning company?”

The answer is simple.

Your business has information and access that criminals may value.

A janitorial company may store:

• Employee Social Security numbers
• Payroll information
• Customer records
• Bank information
• ACH details
• Credit card information
• Email credentials
• Building access information

Cyber criminals do not only target large technology companies.

Small and midsize businesses can also experience ransomware, phishing, wire fraud, and data breaches.

For example, an employee may receive an email that appears to come from a customer requesting a change to payment instructions. One successful phishing email could result in a significant financial loss.

Strong cybersecurity controls are the first line of defense.

Cyber liability insurance can provide another layer of financial protection for certain covered events.

We will examine cyber liability for janitorial companies in Article #11.

10. Employment Practices Liability Insurance

As your workforce grows, your employment-related exposure may grow with it.

Employment practices liability insurance, commonly called EPLI, can address certain allegations involving employment practices.

Examples may include:

• Discrimination
• Harassment
• Wrongful termination
• Retaliation
• Certain hiring-related allegations

This exposure can become particularly important for janitorial companies with multiple supervisors and crews working across different locations.

Strong employment procedures are critical.

Managers should receive appropriate training. In addition, the company should document policies and consistently enforce them.

Once again, insurance is only part of the solution.

11. Business Income and Florida Catastrophe Exposure

Florida businesses face another category of risk that cannot be ignored.

Hurricanes and severe storms can disrupt operations even when your business does not suffer a direct loss.

Your office or warehouse could suffer wind damage. Equipment could be damaged. A prolonged power outage could interrupt operations.

Flooding creates another concern.

In addition, your customers could temporarily close their buildings after a storm. That could affect your ability to perform contracted work and generate revenue.

Property insurance, flood insurance, and business income coverage are not interchangeable.

For example, a standard commercial property policy does not automatically mean your business has protection for every type of flood loss.

Therefore, Florida janitorial companies should consider catastrophe planning as part of their overall insurance strategy.

We will cover Florida hurricane insurance planning for janitorial companies in Article #10.

12. Your Customer Contracts May Determine the Insurance You Need

One of the biggest insurance mistakes can happen before your employees ever begin cleaning.

It happens when you sign the contract.

Commercial customers may require janitorial companies to maintain specific insurance coverage.

A contract could require:

• Specific general liability limits
• Commercial auto insurance
• Workers’ compensation
• Umbrella liability
• Additional insured status
• Waiver of subrogation
• Primary and noncontributory wording

Contracts may also contain indemnification or hold-harmless provisions.

Those provisions can create obligations that should be reviewed carefully.

Do not wait until after signing a major customer contract to discover what insurance it requires.

Instead, review the insurance requirements before executing the agreement whenever possible.

Your insurance program and your customer contracts should work together.

We will take a deeper look at janitorial contract insurance requirements in Article #8.

What About 1099 Cleaners and Subcontractors?

This is one of the most important questions a growing janitorial company can ask.

Hiring someone as a “1099 worker” does not automatically make that person an independent contractor for every legal or insurance purpose.

Florida uses specific criteria when evaluating independent contractor status in workers’ compensation situations.

That makes subcontractor management extremely important.

If your janitorial company uses subcontractors, your process should address:

• Written subcontractor agreements
• Certificates of insurance
• General liability coverage
• Workers’ compensation coverage
• Policy expiration dates
• Coverage limits
• Annual verification

Do not collect a certificate once and assume the problem is solved forever.

Insurance policies expire. Subcontractors change carriers. Coverage can lapse.

In addition, subcontractor costs and uninsured subcontractors may create issues during insurance audits.

We will dedicate an entire article to 1099 cleaners and independent contractors in Florida because the subject deserves more than a few paragraphs.

The Florida Janitorial Company Insurance Checklist

So, what should you review?

Start with the major insurance categories.

Your Florida janitorial company insurance checklist should consider:

• Commercial general liability
• Workers’ compensation
• Commercial auto
• Hired and non-owned auto
• Commercial property
• Inland marine
• Crime and employee dishonesty
• Janitorial service bonds
• Umbrella or excess liability
• Pollution liability
• Cyber liability
• Employment practices liability
• Business income
• Flood and wind exposure
• Subcontractor insurance
• Contractual insurance requirements

However, checking boxes next to policies is not enough.

You also need to determine whether your business has changed.

Ask yourself:

• Have we hired more employees?
• Has our payroll increased?
• Have we purchased vehicles?
• Are employees using personal vehicles for work?
• Have we added new cleaning services?
• Are we cleaning different types of facilities?
• Have we purchased expensive equipment?
• Are we using subcontractors?
• Have our customer contracts changed?
• Are we using new chemicals?
• Has our revenue increased significantly?

If the answer to any of these questions is yes, your risk profile may have changed too.

Your insurance program should change with it.

How Often Should a Janitorial Company Review Its Insurance?

At a minimum, conduct a comprehensive insurance review every year.

However, the renewal date should not be the only time you think about insurance.

Review your program whenever your operation changes significantly.

For example, conduct another review when you:

• Win a major contract
• Open another location
• Purchase vehicles
• Hire a large number of employees
• Begin using subcontractors
• Add a new service
• Purchase expensive equipment
• Expand into another state

Waiting until renewal can create unnecessary gaps.

Your insurance agent should understand what changed before a claim occurs, not after one.

Your Insurance Should Follow Your Risk

The goal is not to buy every insurance policy available.

The goal is to understand where your janitorial company can lose money.

Some risks can be avoided. Others can be reduced through safety procedures. Certain risks can be transferred through contracts. Still others may need to be insured or intentionally retained.

That process starts with understanding your operation.

As your company grows, your exposures change. New employees, larger customers, additional vehicles, different facilities, new chemicals, and more complicated contracts can all change your risk.

Your insurance program should change with them.

A certificate of insurance proves that a policy exists. It does not prove that the policy properly protects your business.

Download the Florida Janitorial Company Insurance Checklist

Not sure where the gaps are?

Download our Florida Janitorial Company Insurance Checklist and walk through the major coverage areas, operational exposures, subcontractor issues, and contract requirements every janitorial business owner should review.

Use it before your next insurance renewal, after winning a major contract, or anytime your operation changes.

Because the best time to find an insurance gap is before the claim happens.

Frequently Asked Questions