HANDYMAN CONNECTION

The Handyman Connection franchise disclosure document requires workers' compensation with employers liability at $1,000,000 limits, commercial auto at $1,000,000 combined single limit, general liability at $1,000,000 per occurrence with $2,000,000 products and completed operations aggregate and $2,000,000 general aggregate, an Employee Dishonesty Bond of at least $5,000, and an umbrella of at least $1,000,000.

The named insured on your certificate is your own legal business entity. Trident Investment Partners, Inc. d/b/a Handyman Connection is the franchisor and must be named as an additional insured using ISO form CG 2029, with a waiver of subrogation using ISO form CG 2404. Combined single limit means one limit applies to any mix of bodily injury and property damage in a single accident. Your coverage must apply as primary and non-contributory — your policy responds first, before any coverage the franchisor carries.

That is what the agreement establishes. Here is what a home-repair and light-remodeling operation actually faces — starting with the certificate that can cost you a commercial account.

The franchisor entity is Trident Investment Partners, Inc. d/b/a Handyman Connection, an Illinois corporation with its principal business address at 11115 Kenwood Road, Blue Ash, Ohio 45242. The 2026 franchise disclosure document, Item 8, sets out the following required coverages.

Workers' Compensation at the greater of state-law limits or the franchisor's standard operating procedures, with Employers Liability at $1,000,000 each accident, $1,000,000 each employee for disease, and $1,000,000 policy limit for disease. Workers' compensation pays an injured tech's medical bills and lost wages. Employers Liability responds when an injured worker sues the employer. In monopolistic states — Ohio, North Dakota, Washington, and Wyoming — Employers Liability (also called Stop Gap) must be added to the general liability policy because the state fund does not provide it.

Commercial Auto Liability at $1,000,000 combined single limit, covering all owned, hired, and non-owned vehicles.

General Liability at $1,000,000 per occurrence, $2,000,000 products and completed operations aggregate, $2,000,000 general aggregate, and $1,000,000 personal and advertising injury. Coverage must include premises and operations, products and completed operations, and contractual liability. The policy must name the franchisor as additional insured on ISO form CG 2029 and include a waiver of subrogation on ISO form CG 2404.

Employee Dishonesty Insurance at a minimum of $5,000 per loss, including coverage for theft against third parties. This is the FDD's crime requirement — coverage for theft committed by your own people, including theft from customers.

Umbrella / Excess Liability at not less than $1,000,000 per occurrence and aggregate, applying over the general liability, automobile, and employers liability coverages.

All policies must provide 30 days' written notice of material change or cancellation. The FDD recommends — but does not currently require — cyber liability and employment practices liability insurance.

Handyman Connection's work is mostly residential, but commercial accounts — property managers, real estate firms, small businesses — are where many franchisees grow. A commercial client buys insurance protection differently than a homeowner. They send a certificate request with specific limits, specific named insureds, and specific endorsement forms, and they will not let your crew start until every line is satisfied exactly.

Your policy may cover the work at a commercial site just as it covers residential work. The problem is rarely the coverage. It is the certificate. A commercial client commonly requires $2,000,000 per occurrence rather than $1,000,000, the client itself named as an additional insured (on top of your franchisor), a waiver of subrogation in their favor, and primary and non-contributory language. If your policy was built for residential minimums, it may not produce that certificate — and a certificate you cannot produce is a job you cannot take.

The fix is to build the policy for the commercial work you intend to pursue, not just the residential minimum the FDD sets. That means confirming your carrier can add a client as additional insured on the right form, can issue the waiver and primary-and-non-contributory language, and can support the higher limits a commercial certificate demands.

Handyman Connection's services include plumbing and electrical work, kept small by design — the FDD caps jobs at $15,000 per project. Small jobs still cross lines. A "minor plumbing repair" can mean opening a wall, reworking a supply line, or touching a connection that legally requires a licensed plumber. A "minor electrical repair" can mean work at the panel that legally requires a licensed electrician. The size of the invoice does not determine the legal category of the work.

When a tech performs work that legally required a licensed trade your business did not hold, your general liability carrier has an argument that the loss arose from unlicensed work. Some policies carry a classification limitation or a professional services exclusion that removes coverage for work outside the scope you disclosed. The claim is not denied because the repair was poor. It is questioned because the work belonged to a licensed trade.

The protection is to know which tasks in your state require a license, to use a licensed subcontractor for those tasks, and to confirm your general liability covers — rather than excludes — liability arising from your subcontractors.

It is one of the most common handyman losses. A tech swaps a faucet, a valve, or a supply line, the connection fails after he leaves, and water runs for hours. By the time the customer notices, the bathroom floor is ruined, the ceiling below is stained, and water has reached finished space on a lower level. A small repair becomes a five-figure water-damage claim.

The good news: accidental water damage to the customer's other property is generally the kind of sudden, accidental loss general liability is built to cover. The damaged ceiling, the soaked flooring on the level below, the ruined drywall — those are property damage from your operations. The gaps appear in two places. 

First, the "your work" exclusion removes coverage for the specific fixture or connection you installed — the policy may pay for the water-damaged ceiling but not to redo the faulty connection itself. Second, mold. If the moisture sits and mold grows before anyone catches it, the standard mold and fungus exclusion can block the mold-remediation portion of the claim, which is often the most expensive line item.

To protect against the mold piece, ask whether your policy carries a mold exclusion and whether a limited mold endorsement is available. And document your water shut-off and connection-check procedures they reduce both the frequency of these losses and the cost when one happens.

Handyman Connection's FDD requires an Employee Dishonesty Bond of at least $5,000, including theft against third parties. Because the brand sends techs into homes — often alone, for hours, with access to valuables — this is the right exposure to think hard about. But the word "bond" hides a distinction that matters at claim time.

First, general liability does not cover employee theft at all. Theft by your own tech is dishonesty, not an accident, and the standard policy excludes it. So the dishonesty coverage is doing real work — it is the only thing standing between you and a theft allegation. The question is whether $5,000 of it, on a bond form, is enough.

A traditional dishonesty bond is a fidelity instrument. It protects the customer if your employee steals, but it often carries two weaknesses. Many bonds pay only after the employee is criminally convicted of the theft — and the most common real claim is a credible accusation with no arrest and no charge, which can trigger nothing. And the surety that issues the bond typically seeks reimbursement from your business after it pays the customer, so you can end up funding the loss anyway.

A third-party commercial crime policy is the stronger instrument. It is a contract between the insurer and your business that covers theft of a customer's property by your employees. It generally pays without requiring a criminal conviction, and it does not seek the money back from you. Rikor's benchmark is a third-party crime policy at $250,000 with a theft-of-customer-property endorsement — a limit that matches a single high-value loss or a pattern across many homes. Carry the FDD's required $5,000 dishonesty bond for compliance, and layer the real protection through a third-party crime policy at a meaningful limit.

If you carry a crime policy, ask for it on a Loss Discovered form, which covers a theft discovered during the policy period even if it began earlier — including before your current policy started. A Loss Sustained form covers only thefts that both occurred and were found in the same period. For a service where a customer might notice a missing item days or weeks after the visit, Loss Discovered is the form that still responds. Keep this separate from license and permit bonds, which some states require to hold a contractor license — those are unrelated to dishonesty coverage.

A customer calls about a small leak. Your tech repairs it. A week later the leak is worse, or a new problem has appeared where the repair was made. The customer's position is simple: it was fine-ish before you touched it, and now it is not. This is the "the repair made it worse" claim, and it sits in an awkward spot for general liability.

General liability is built for accidental property damage and bodily injury — not for the cost of redoing work that did not perform. If the only complaint is that the repair failed and needs to be redone, that is a workmanship dispute, and GL's "your work" exclusion removes the cost of fixing your own work. GL responds when the failed repair causes new, resulting damage to other property — water from the worsened leak damaging the cabinet and floor, for example. The repair itself comes out of your pocket; the resulting damage to other property is the part the policy is built to cover.

The coverage that addresses the workmanship side is Contractors Errors & Omissions — it can respond to faulty workmanship that GL's "your work" exclusion leaves out, and to professional judgment errors that cause financial loss without any property damage. For a franchisee doing light remodeling and repeat repair work, E&O is worth reviewing.

Your premium depends on your state, your payroll, your revenue, your service mix, and your claims history. What you can control is understanding how the number is built — and preparing for the part that arrives after the year ends.

General liability and workers' compensation are both auditable. An audit is the carrier's year-end review that compares what you estimated when the policy started against what actually happened, then adjusts the premium up or down. It can move either direction — overestimate, and you get money back.

General liability for a handyman contractor is usually rated on gross receipts — a rate per $1,000 of revenue — with payments to 1099 subcontractors who cannot show their own certificate added to the base. Workers' compensation is rated on payroll: payroll divided by 100, multiplied by your state bureau's rate for the class code, multiplied by your experience modification — a factor based on your claims history. The per-$100 rate is set by your state's rating bureau, the National Council on Compensation Insurance (NCCI) in most states. The carrier applies it; it does not set it.

A worked example on the subcontractor side. Say you pay $50,000 to a 1099 carpenter and a 1099 electrician during a busy quarter and cannot produce their certificates of insurance at audit. The carrier adds that $50,000 to your exposure base and charges premium on it — the same as if it were your own payroll. At a handyman general liability rate near $8 per $1,000, that adds roughly $400, plus any workers' compensation charge the state applies to uninsured subs. The bill arrives months after the year closes.

Handyman Connection's FDD is precise on compliance — named forms, a required umbrella, a dishonesty requirement. The gaps lie in what it sets too low, and in what it recommends but does not require. The recommendations below are Rikor's baselines, calibrated for a newer franchisee and scaled by revenue, payroll, service mix, and years in business. A solo-plus-one operation and a five-territory operation with commercial accounts sit at different points on every line.

Third-party crime at $250,000 — raise the $5,000 dishonesty bond. The FDD requires only $5,000 of dishonesty coverage. Your techs work alone in homes with access to valuables, and general liability excludes employee theft entirely. Carry a third-party commercial crime policy with a theft-of-customer-property endorsement at $250,000, on a Loss Discovered form, which pays without a conviction and does not seek reimbursement. Keep the required $5,000 bond for compliance and put the real protection at $250,000.

Care, custody, and control endorsement. The FDD does not address the CCC exclusion, which removes coverage for a customer's property in your tech's control during a job. Add a CCC endorsement so the policy can respond to damage to the customer's belongings your tech was handling.

Independent Contractors Liability — confirm no subcontractor exclusion. The model relies on 1099 trade subs. A subcontractor exclusion on your general liability would remove coverage for liability arising from a sub's work — exactly the licensed-trade exposure you bring subs in to handle. Confirm the exclusion is not present, and that your GL extends to your subcontractors.

Contractors Errors & Omissions, exposure-gated.** For light remodeling and repeat repair work, E&O at $1,000,000 per claim and aggregate covers faulty workmanship that GL's "your work" exclusion leaves out, and judgment errors that cause financial loss. Review it as project sizes or commercial work grow; a pure small-repair residential operation may not need it yet.

Cyber at $250,000 — the FDD recommends it. Handyman Connection's lead-routing platform, scheduling system, customer database, and payment processing create a breach exposure. The FDD recommends cyber and reserves the right to require it. Rikor's benchmark for a newer franchisee is $250,000, scaling to $500,000 once revenue crosses $750,000.

EPLI at $250,000 — the FDD recommends it. Employment practices liability covers employee claims of wrongful termination, discrimination, harassment, or wage violations. The FDD recommends it. Rikor's baseline for a newer franchisee is $250,000, scaling toward $250,000–$500,000 as headcount passes ten or revenue crosses $750,000.

Inland marine for tools and equipment. Your auto policy covers the truck, not the tools inside it. Inland marine — an equipment floater — covers tools at job sites, in transit, and in the vehicle, on an actual cash value basis. Size it to what your techs actually carry.

Umbrella — you carry $1,000,000; reason from your worst realistic loss. The FDD requires a $1,000,000 umbrella, so the layer exists. Whether you need more is a severity question. Most Handyman Connection work is residential and small, capped at $15,000 per project, with losses that sit inside a $1M/$2M primary stack. The umbrella becomes more important as you pursue commercial property-management or condominium accounts that require $2,000,000 or higher certificates, or as a water-damage loss in a stacked, multi-unit building could exceed your primary limit. Reason from your real work: when the realistic worst case could blow through the primary, raise the umbrella to match the certificates and the exposure.