Will Your Contractor’s Workers Compensation Policy Protect You?

Professional Employer Organizations (PEO’s) or Employee Leasing arrangements have become more popular in recent years and are commonplace in the roofing industry.

There are significant upsides for business owners in hiring their workforce this way, but as a homeowner there are some very serious implications that you need to be sure you understand.

1. PEO/Employee Leasing Workers Compensation only covers “rostered” employees of the business listed on their certificate, not the business as a whole.

What it means: If the employee has not been properly hired and onboarded, they are not covered.

What you can do as a homeowner: Ask the employee leasing company to provide you with a list of rostered employees and confirm with the roofing company that you are hiring that only those individuals listed are working at your home.

2. Coverage does not extend to sub-contractors or 1099 workers.

What it means: As mentioned above, these policies only cover individuals who are actual W2 employees of the company on the certificate. Subcontractors and their employees as well as 1099 personnel would not be covered by a PEO backed workers compensation policy

Workers Compensation Poster

What you can do as a homeowner: Ask your roofing contractor if they subcontract any portion of their roofing or trades labor or if all of their workers are “in-house” employees? If they subcontract any portion of their work, ask for Workers Compensation certificates for each of those subcontractors.

3. If your Roofing Contractor has a PEO policy and so do their Sub-Contractors, you really have a lot of work to do to make sure that all of their workers workers at your home are covered

What it means: In order to ensure the workers at your home are covered under ANY workers compensation policy, you will need to ensure that all of the workers at your home are propoerly rostered with either your contractors or their subcontractors PEO company.

What can you do as a homeowner: Ask your roofing contractor for a list of names for each worker and then request rosters from your contractor and their subcontractors PEO/Employee Leasing company directly…then cross reference the list for those individuals.

What is the Alternative?

If your contractor has a “broad” or traditional Workers Compensation policy, things are simpler.

While workers compensation is designed to cover employees of the business, these policies also provide coverage where a subcontractor or one of their workers might not have any.

As a result, these business undergo more rigorous year end audits to ensure all of their subcontractors are properly insured.

The Bottom Line

Broad / Traditonal Workers Compensation Policies are generally more expensive, harder to get and require more paperwork for the contractor to ensure ongoing compliance. But for the homeowner… it provides far greater levels of protection and coverage.

4D Roofing & Restoration has invested heavily in securing our Broad/Traditional Workers Compensation Policy as we believe that it provides peace of mind for our business as well as the homeowners we serve.

You can easily check the policy and type of coverage that any contractor carries through the State of Florida’s Workers Compensation Database which is maintained by the Florida Department of Financial Services here:

https://dwcdataportal.fldfs.com/proofofcoverage.aspx

If you’re in the market for a new roof, or if you have any concerns about your roofing system at all, we’d be happy to help.

You can call us anytime at:

407.205.2585

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