Insurance for residential HVAC service and replacement

What homeowners, landlords and builders will ask you for

Most homeowners never ask for your insurance. The ones who do, along with landlords and builders, want specific things.

Homeowners. In some states the license spells out what you owe them. Texas requires licensed air conditioning and refrigeration contractors to give any customer who asks the insurer's name, the policy number and the agent's name, address and phone number. See HVAC contractor insurance in Texas.

Landlords and property managers. Rental work comes with deadlines written into state law. Ohio's landlord-tenant statute requires landlords to supply reasonable heat at all times and keep HVAC fixtures in good, safe working order, so property managers push winter repairs hard. New Jersey's multiple-dwelling rules require 68°F from 6 a.m. to 11 p.m. and 65°F overnight from October 1 to May 15. Arizona requires landlords to provide reasonable cooling where units are installed. Expect a certificate request, often with the manager named as additional insured, before your first work order. See HVAC contractor insurance in Ohio.

Builders. Production and custom builders send a subcontract with an insurance exhibit: limits, additional insured status for ongoing and completed work, and often a waiver of subrogation. A certificate alone doesn't create any of that; the endorsement does. Our certificate of insurance guide explains each request.

Growing a residential HVAC company without outgrowing your coverage

Each growth step in a residential shop changes a line on your policies. Plan the change before the step, not at renewal.

• Building a maintenance-plan base. Recurring revenue is great until the contract promises more than you can deliver. Review the agreement wording every time you change the plan.
• Adding comfort advisors. Outside salespeople who don't do installs are often rated in their own workers' comp class (8742 in NCCI-style lists), well below the 5537 tech rate. Your carrier and the rating bureau decide the class, and the payroll split has to hold up at audit. Our comp class code and audit guide shows the math.
• Hiring for the season. Your comp premium starts as a deposit on estimated payroll. Ten summer helpers you didn't put in the estimate show up on the audit bill.
• Putting more vans in driveways. List every driver of a take-home van and tell us about personal use and overnight parking, because those facts shape the auto rating.
• Adding propane work. Heating classes for general liability separate work that excludes propane from work that includes it, and one published small-business program accepts only the no-propane class. Expect underwriters to ask, and a package policy may stop fitting.
• Adding plumbing or water heaters. Combined plumbing and HVAC shops can split between comp classes; how that split works is a carrier and bureau call.

What you pay depends on your payroll by class code, your annual revenue, your mix of installation and service work, residential versus commercial jobs, the vans you run, your claims history and the limits you pick. Get a quote for your HVAC business →