Temperature Pro

Temperature Pro's residential and commercial HVAC model means franchisees service both homeowners and business clients. The residential exposure is long-tailed completed operations. The commercial exposure adds limits requirements that the franchise agreement minimum may not satisfy. Both need to be built into the policy.

Commercial general liability insurance at $1,000,000 per occurrence and $2,000,000 aggregate on an occurrence form. Completed operations coverage must be included. An HVAC system installed today may produce a claim two or three years from now — a refrigerant connection that develops a slow leak, an installation that was adequate for normal conditions and fails during an extreme weather event, gas line work that develops a fault over time. An occurrence form policy responds to when the damage happened, not when the claim was filed. For any trade with long-tailed completed operations exposure, the occurrence form is not a preference — it is the correct policy type.

Commercial auto liability at a combined single limit of $1,000,000 covering owned, hired, and non-owned vehicles. Temperature Pro service vehicles carry equipment, refrigerant, and parts on every route. The hired and non-owned auto coverage protects you when a technician uses their personal vehicle for company business — a gap that produces denied auto claims more often than most franchisees realize.

Workers compensation insurance at statutory limits for your state, with employers' liability at $1,000,000 per accident, $1,000,000 per disease per employee, and $1,000,000 per disease policy limit. HVAC technicians work with electrical systems, refrigerant, gas lines, and equipment in confined spaces. The workers' compensation policy protects them. The employers' liability limits above it protect you from lawsuits that fall outside the workers' compensation framework.

Umbrella liability at $2,000,000 per occurrence and $2,000,000 aggregate, following form above general liability, auto, and employers' liability. HVAC claims involving heat-related illness, gas line failures, or completed operations on installed systems can consume primary limits quickly. The umbrella is the layer between the primary limits and those outcomes.

Your additional insured endorsements must cover both ongoing operations and completed operations. The completed operations endorsement matters more than most franchisees realize — it is the endorsement that protects the additional insured for claims that arise after the job is done.

The answer depends on how the failure is framed — and HVAC attorneys know which framing triggers coverage and which framing triggers exclusions.

An HVAC unit that fails because of a manufacturing defect is a product liability claim against the manufacturer. Your general liability policy did not make the unit. That claim goes to the equipment manufacturer.

An HVAC unit that fails because of improper installation — undersized for the space, refrigerant charge that was off at setup, ductwork that restricted airflow below design — is a completed operations claim against the installing contractor. Your general liability policy, if written on an occurrence form with completed operations included, responds to the resulting property damage and bodily injury.

The difficult scenario is the unit that performed adequately in normal conditions and failed in an extreme heat event — which creates a dispute about whether the failure resulted from installation error, normal product wear, or an extraordinary weather condition that exceeded the design specification. Attorneys frame this question carefully. The carrier evaluates the framing. The franchisee needs a policy that responds to completed operations claims regardless of how long they take to surface.

A gas line connection failure is the most catastrophic single-event claim in the residential HVAC trade. The sequence — slow leak, ignition source, explosion or fire — produces property damage and bodily injury claims that can exceed primary general liability limits entirely.

The exposure begins at every furnace installation or replacement where a gas connection is made or modified. It continues for the completed operations period — which on an occurrence-form policy is indefinite, responding to any event that traces back to work you performed.

There are two coverage dimensions to evaluate. First: does the general liability policy have a pollution exclusion that applies to natural gas? Gas is consistently classified as a pollutant under standard policy language. A gas line leak that results in bodily injury or property damage may trigger the pollution exclusion before the claim is evaluated on its merits. Contractors pollution liability removes that threshold question.

Second: does the umbrella policy provide sufficient limits above the primary layer? A residential gas explosion with bodily injury to multiple occupants is a claim that can reach $500,000 to $1,000,000 in a moderate scenario and significantly more in a serious one. A $1,000,000 primary limit and a $2,000,000 umbrella provides $3,000,000 in combined coverage. Whether that is sufficient depends on the specific facts of the event.

Temperature Pro HVAC franchisees regularly subcontract specialty work — sheet metal fabrication, controls wiring, refrigerant recovery. Each sub carries a separate certificate on their own renewal schedule. None of them will tell you when it lapses. A subcontractor's error on a gas connection that produces a claim still comes back to your general liability if the sub's certificate cannot be produced. See how subcontractor compliance monitoring works for HVAC franchisees at subcontractor-compliance.

The premium for a complete Temperature Pro franchise insurance stack is built from several components, and workers' compensation is the most variable one.

How workers' compensation premium is calculated

Workers' compensation premium follows this formula: payroll divided by 100, multiplied by the rate for your NCCI classification code, multiplied by your experience modification factor.

Temperature Pro HVAC work classifies under NCCI code 5537. Rates vary by state: approximately $2.24 per $100 in lower-rate states, approximately $5.14 per $100 in states like Florida. A Temperature Pro franchisee with $200,000 in annual payroll operating in a mid-rate state at $3.50 per $100 generates roughly $7,000 in base workers' compensation premium before the experience modification is applied. An experience modification below 1.00 reduces that figure. A modification above 1.00 — which happens after significant claims — increases it.

If your technicians perform gas line work as part of your HVAC scope, confirm with your carrier whether that work is within NCCI 5537 or whether it triggers a separate classification in your state. The reclassification at audit produces a bill — not a question.

What happens at audit if your subcontractor certificates are missing

Your workers' compensation carrier audits actual payroll at year end. Any 1099 payroll without a current certificate is treated as your payroll at your classification rate. The audit risk is the financial exposure from that reclassification. The injury risk is more serious: a 1099 subcontractor hurt on your job without their own workers' compensation coverage may have their medical costs and lost wages become your direct obligation — uncapped and outside the workers' compensation system.

What the Temperature Pro FDD says about insurance costs

No FDD was available for this review. Temperature Pro's franchise disclosure document does not appear in publicly available records at this time. Coverage requirements and cost estimates in this article reflect the Rikor home services benchmark for single-territory HVAC operations. Compare these figures against your franchise agreement when you receive it.

The five variables that determine your actual number

Your state. Your payroll. Your fleet. Your claims history. Your subcontractor use.

Insurance premium for a Temperature Pro franchise is not a single number. Your state, your zip code, your payroll, your fleet, and your claims history all move it. A quote built for your operation, your state, and your specific service lines is the only number that applies.

These coverages are not required by your franchise agreement. They reflect the actual exposure patterns in residential and commercial HVAC work.

Contractors pollution liability addresses gas line failures, refrigerant releases, and carbon monoxide exposure under HVAC operations. Standard general liability classifies gas, refrigerant, and carbon monoxide as pollutants and excludes resulting claims. 

Contractors pollution liability is the policy that responds to these events. Temperature Pro franchisees who do gas line work or refrigerant service — which describes most HVAC franchises — should treat this as a core coverage, not an optional addition.

Contractors errors and omissions covers professional judgment claims — an installation decision that was reasonable at the time but contributed to a failure in unusual conditions, a maintenance recommendation that the customer relied on, or a diagnostic assessment the customer claims missed a developing problem. The pattern from the heat-season failure scenario above — where the claim involves not just the failure but whether the installation was adequate for the conditions — is exactly the territory errors and omissions covers that general liability does not.

Tools and equipment coverage (inland marine) covers refrigerant recovery units, manifold gauges, diagnostic equipment, and specialty tools when they are in vehicles or at job sites. Standard commercial property coverage does not apply off-premises. The equipment in a Temperature Pro service fleet represents a significant capital investment that is uninsured under most standard commercial property policies outside of a fixed business location.