Business · By industry · Janitorial services
For janitorial and commercial cleaning companies in Washington, from a two-person evening crew to firms cleaning offices and clinics. The insurance questions follow the work: keys and alarm codes to other people's buildings, floors that are wet when a tenant walks in, vehicles between sites. One policy does not cover them all, so these are the areas to review.
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What to review
General liability responds to claims that your work injured someone or damaged property that is not yours. Property managers and facility contracts commonly ask for a certificate before the first shift, with the owner and manager as additional insureds and your policy as primary and non-contributory. Treat each as a question for the policy, and ask whether the additional insured endorsement is blanket or names each client.
Cleaning crews hold keys and alarm codes to buildings they do not own, so two exposures follow. A lost master key can mean rekeying a building, and general liability may not treat that as property damage; ask about a lost key endorsement and what it pays. Employee theft from a client's premises is commonly excluded from general liability; a janitorial services bond, a form of crime coverage, is the usual answer, and many contracts ask for one by name.
A buffer that scars a floor, a chemical that bleaches a carpet, a vacuum that knocks a monitor off a desk: client property damage is routine, and general liability commonly limits damage to property in your care, custody or control. Ask how the policy treats the property you are cleaning. A slip on a freshly mopped floor is the other common claim; signage, timing and the contract's indemnity clause decide who answers first.
Vehicles titled to the business need commercial auto. Crews who drive their own cars between sites raise the hired and non-owned auto question, because the business can be named after a crash it did not drive in; hired and non-owned auto covers the business's liability, not the employee's car. Floor machines, extractors and vacuums left on client sites are an inland marine question, not an auto one: ask how they are valued and whether theft is covered.
Washington is a state-fund state: most employers insure workers through the Department of Labor & Industries, not a private carrier. L&I assigns each employer one or more risk classifications by the nature of the work, each with its own base rate, adjusted by the employer's experience factor. L&I's classification plan places janitorial services in classification 6602, with subcodes for commercial interior cleaning, residential cleaning and contract window washing; confirm your own assignment with L&I, because the assignment follows the work performed, not the trade name. Stop-gap employer's liability is not part of the L&I policy and is bought separately.
Washington requires construction contractors to register with L&I, with a surety bond and proof of general liability insurance. A cleaning company meets that line at post-construction cleanup: L&I's classification plan reports pre-occupancy construction cleanup done by workers with construction duties in the construction classification, not in 6602. If your crews do that work, ask L&I how to report the hours and whether registration applies, which carries a $30,000 bond for a general contractor and $15,000 for a specialty contractor at the amounts in effect since July 1, 2024. A bond is not insurance and does not replace a liability policy.
A commercial umbrella sits above general liability, auto and employer's liability and adds limits when a contract asks for more than the underlying policies carry, as property managers commonly do. Ask which policies it sits over, whether it follows their terms or carries its own exclusions, and whether it extends over stop-gap. An umbrella does not extend a policy it does not list beneath it.
A crew member's key ring, with a master key to an office building, goes missing. The property manager demands the building be rekeyed and, the same week, a tenant reports a laptop missing. Whether a policy pays for either depends on whether a lost key endorsement was in place, whether rekeying counts as property damage under general liability, what the janitorial bond requires before paying for the laptop, and what the facility contract says about indemnity. A real claim depends on the facts and the policy.
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