How to Get Bonded for a Cleaning Business

If you run a cleaning business, there’s a chance that one of your employees will steal from a residential or commercial property where they are cleaning. If and when that happens, the client will expect the cleaning company to take responsibility for the employee’s actions by offering to pay for the lost property and any other damages. So what next? Paying for employee theft can create an unexpected (and often significant) cost for your company, one that could put your budget and bottom line in jeopardy. To plan for this unfortunate but common risk, you should consider getting bonding insurance for cleaning businesses – it could spare you lots of financial hardship later. This blog outlines everything you should know.

The Basics of Cleaning Business Insurance and Bonding

Some types of surety bonds are mandatory for a business to get. However, in the cleaning industry, Janitorial service bonds are optional. They are an example of a fidelity bond, which businesses owners obtain voluntarily.

Unlike normal surety bonds, janitorial services fidelity bonds act like an insurance policy involving two parties:

The Insured– The cleaning company. The cleaning company can file a claim on the bond to help cover losses due to fraudulent acts of the cleaning company’s employees.
The Insurer– The bond underwriter. The surety will settle claims with the insured. Settlement is often dependent on the validation of the claim. In most cases claim validation involves the employee being legally convicted of the crime.

In essence, janitorial services bonds can provide a level of protection from dishonest employees for your janitorial services company .It’s worth mentioning again that the surety will require the employee be convicted of the crime in a court of law before settling the claim.

Getting Bonded for Cleaning Businesses – Why it Makes Sense

It costs money to get one of these bonds. So why would you get a janitorial services bond if they aren’t required? Wouldn’t it make more sense to pay for stolen property out of pocket and be done with it? Not necessarily.

The primary reason is to create a bond of trust between your business and potential clients. Clients take a risk by inviting unfamiliar individuals into their homes or businesses to have close contact with their property. Those people feel more comfortable hiring a cleaning services company with a bond because the bond provides a better chance of compensation if a theft occurs. Given the choice between a company with and without a bond, most people will choose the insured and bonded cleaning service – it’s an easy pick.

Janitorial services bonds protect the bondholder too. Since the bond will only settle valid claims that get proven in court, the bond protects you from frivolous and fraudulent claims filed by angry clients.

Many cleaning services use their bonded status as a competitive differentiator and marketing asset. They emphasize their bonded status in their advertising materials to signal that clients can trust who they are hiring.

Getting Bonded for Cleaning Businesses – When it Makes Sense

It makes sense for any cleaning business, from small house cleaning providers to major janitorial services companies, to get the protection of a bond. Whenever cleaners are working independently, there’s the risk of theft – it’s an unfortunate truth.

The best time to get a bond is before any cleaning services start. Not only can the bonded status help to attract early customers, but it also puts in important protection – for the business and its customers – in place from day one. If you’re about to start a cleaning services business or want to add an asset to your existing business, rely on Viking Bond Service to make getting bonded simple.

How to Get Insured and Bonded for House Cleaning

We are focusing here on house cleaning because there are far more companies providing residential cleaning services than commercial services – but the steps for getting a bond will be the same for anyone seeking a janitorial services bond. Unlike other surety bond types, there is no credit check required. The surety only needs some basic information about the business:

Amount of Bond Coverage
Number of Cleaners
Basic Business Info – name, address, etc.
Contact Info

The surety will use this information to quote a cost for the bond. You will need to pay to activate coverage for a specific length of time, often 12 months. It will need to be renewed after that, which involves another premium payment.

How much bond coverage should you get? It depends on how much financial damage employee theft might cause. As a general rule of thumb, commercial cleaners get more coverage than residential cleaners, and both seek out more coverage as the number of employees goes up. A company with 2-3 cleaners might get $10,000 in coverage while a company with 50 cleaners needs much higher coverage.

What Does Bonding Insurance for a Cleaning Business Cost?

The cost of a surety bond is a small percentage of the total coverage amount, less than $200 in some cases. Find out how much a bond would cost by submitting an application to a surety agency that can find competitive bond offers from providers across the country. Working with the right surety agency makes it faster and easier to get a bond and locates the best offers available. Don’t pay more than necessary – work with Viking Bond Service instead.

Viking Bond Service – Serving All 50 States

Cleaning services providers in every state can rely on us for help getting bonded. From beginning to end, we make the process easy to understand, fast to finish, and affordable to take advantage of. Bonds are a smart addition to any cleaning service business, and with Viking Bond Service, they’re accessible to all. Request a quote at your convenience to get a quote in under 24 hours. We also have a team standing by to answer all your questions – contact us for assistance or call 1-888-2-SURETY (1-888-278-7389)