TradeCheck

Licensed, bonded and insured: what each one means

“Licensed, bonded and insured” is three claims, not one. A license is a smaller thing than most people hiring a contractor assume, and a copy of a register is smaller still. This page says exactly how small, because a check is only worth running if you know what it answered.

Three claims, three places to check them

The claimWhat it meansWhere it is checked
LicensedA board’s register records the license under that name, with an expiry date.The board’s register — which is what the search on every state page here copies.
BondedA surety bond is on file: money a customer can claim against if the contractor breaks the rules it is bonded under.Where a board requires one, the board’s own lookup. Washington’s L&I publishes its bond file separately, and the Washington results here print one fact from it: the date of any payout against the bond.
InsuredThe contractor holds a liability policy covering damage the work does.No register on this site holds it. Ask for the certificate of insurance and confirm it with the insurer; in Washington, L&I’s own verify tool also shows the policy it has on file.

What a record on this site means

It means one thing: the board’s file, published on the date shown, recorded that license under that name with that expiry date. Everything else a reader might want — is the work any good, are they insured, has anyone complained, are they licensed today — is outside what a copy of a file can answer, and this site does not pretend otherwise.

What these files hold

Across 312,472 records in 7 registers, every published field is one of these:

PublishedWhy it is here
Name as the board records itThe search key. A license is held by a name, and matching that name is the check.
Business name, where it differsThe name on the truck is often not the name on the license.
License numberThe only unambiguous key, and the one to quote when confirming with the board.
License type, and the board’s class or endorsement code where it publishes oneA license permits particular work. Holding one is not the same as being allowed to do this job.
The board’s specialty word, where the board records oneThe same point in Washington’s vocabulary, and it is made twice. L&I registers electrical contractors under one license type and fifteen specialties, and plumbing contractors under one type and six — and on both, the specialty is what limits the work. On the plumbing side the specialty is the certificate held by the contractor’s designated plumber, which WAC 296-400A-011 makes the scope of work that contractor may perform.
Expiry dateThe only standing signal some boards publish at all.
The board’s own status word, where the board publishes oneRepeating a board is a smaller claim than working a status out from a date.
County or town, where the board records oneHelps tell two holders with the same or a similar name apart — which is the only reason it is here, and it does not always manage it: two registrations can share a name and a town, and then the license number and the board's own word are what separate them. A town is not a way to reach anybody, and both boards print it in their own public results.

What they deliberately do not hold

No mailing address. No phone number. No bond amount or surety, no insurance policy, no complaint or disciplinary record, no principal’s personal name where a board publishes one separately, and no job history.

Some of that is a boundary rather than a gap. The record type on this site has no field to hold a contact detail, and the build asks each board only for the columns it publishes — so an address cannot reach this site even by mistake. A license check needs to know who holds a license and whether it is current, not how to reach them; and republishing contact details is what turns a verification tool into the kind of people directory that spends its life answering removal requests.

Questions people ask

What does “licensed, bonded and insured” mean?

Three different things, each held in a different place. Licensed means a board’s register records the license under that name — the only one of the three a register can answer, and the one every page here copies. Bonded means a surety bond is on file, which is money a customer can claim against if the contractor breaks the rules it is bonded under. Insured means the contractor holds a liability policy, which covers damage the work does.

A contractor can truthfully be any one of the three without the other two, so the phrase on a truck or an estimate is three claims, and each one is checked separately.

Does a license mean the contractor is insured?

Not by itself, and no file on this site can tell you. Everything these pages carry is in the table above, and none of it is an insurance policy. The one bond fact here is Washington’s: where L&I records a payout against a contractor’s bond, the result prints the date — which says somebody claimed against that bond and was paid, not that a bond is in force today.

Where a board publishes bond and insurance records, it publishes them separately from the registration file and its own lookup is where you read them. Washington’s L&I, for one, publishes a contractor bond file and a contractor insurance file alongside the registration file, and its verify tool shows what it currently holds.

Does a license mean the work will be any good?

No. A license records that someone met the board’s entry requirements and has kept the license alive. It is a floor, not a rating, and nothing in any of these files describes a single job.

The board is also where complaints and disciplinary actions live, and a license being current does not mean no complaint has been filed. Every state page here links to that board’s complaints office for exactly that reason.

The result says the license was current. Can I stop there?

No. It says what the board’s file said on the date printed beside the result. A license can be suspended or revoked between two of the board’s files, and a copy cannot know about it.

That is why every result on this site carries a link to the board’s own lookup, and why the wording is deliberately lopsided: this site is cautious about calling something current and plain about calling it expired. Being sent to the board when a license was in fact renewed costs a minute. Being told a revoked license is current costs rather more.

Why does this site not show addresses or phone numbers?

Because a license check does not need them. Deciding whether someone holds a current license takes a name, a number and a date; how to reach them is a different product, and the one that turns a verification tool into a people directory.

The boundary is drawn in the software rather than in a policy. There is nowhere in this site’s records to put an address or a phone number, and each build asks the boards only for the columns listed above — so a contact detail cannot reach this site even by mistake. Washington’s source file carries a street address, a city, a ZIP and a phone number for every row. The street address, the ZIP and the phone number are never requested. The city is, and it is printed beside every Washington result: two registrations under the same business name could not otherwise be told apart, which is the one job a location field is here to do, and Texas prints a county beside a result, or says the holder is based out of state, which 709 of its air conditioning licences are. A town is not a way to reach anybody, and both boards show it in their own public search results.

How current is the copy I am searching?

Every page states the date of the board file it was built from, and every result repeats it. The registers are refetched daily.

Past a grace window set by how often that board publishes, a page stops asserting status altogether: it keeps showing what it holds and changes its wording to say the copy is too old to report a current status. The failure worth guarding against is not old data — it is a broken pipeline serving yesterday’s confident answer forever.

Where to run the check