MOSQUITO SQUAD

The Mosquito Squad franchise agreement requires comprehensive general liability at $1,000,000 per incident and $2,000,000 in the aggregate. It requires automobile liability, and workers' compensation with employers liability at $1,000,000. It recommends — but does not require — an umbrella, business interruption, employment practices liability, and cyber coverage.

The named insured on your certificate is your own legal business entity. The agreement requires you to name two franchisor entities as additional insureds: Mosquito Squad Franchising SPE LLC and Authority Brands, Inc. in its capacity as Manager. A waiver of subrogation is required, and the franchisor may require a performance bond of up to $50,000.

That satisfies your franchisor. Here is where the requirement ends and your real exposure as a pesticide applicator begins — starting with the coverage the agreement never mentions.

The franchisor entity is Mosquito Squad Franchising SPE LLC, a Delaware limited liability company and an Authority Brands company. Its principal business address is 7120 Samuel Morse Drive, Suite 300, Columbia, Maryland 21046. The 2025 franchise agreement (Item 8) sets out the following.

**General liability** at $1,000,000 per incident and $2,000,000 in the aggregate. The FDD uses "per incident," which is standard insurance language for **per occurrence** — coverage triggered by when the harm happens. The agreement does not name a form, but for a pesticide applicator, occurrence form is the right structure because chemical claims can surface weeks after a treatment.

Automobile liability for owned, leased, hired, and non-owned vehicles, at $1,000,000 combined single limit per state, with $1,000,000 uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage. A combined single limit is one shared pool for bodily injury and property damage.

Workers compensation as required by your state, with employers liability at $1,000,000 each incident, each employee, and policy limit. Workers' compensation pays an injured technician's medical bills and lost wages without fault; employers liability responds when an injured technician sues you outside that no-fault system.

The agreement also lets the franchisor require a performance bond of up to $50,000 a surety bond that guarantees you will perform your obligations. That is not insurance and it does not cover pesticide claims; keep it separate in your mind from the coverage discussed below.

Both Mosquito Squad Franchising SPE LLC and Authority Brands, Inc. (as Manager) must appear as additional insureds, with a waiver of subrogation. Most franchisees name only the brand entity and miss the parent. A certificate that omits Authority Brands, Inc. is non-compliant.

Mosquito Squad's growth story is commercial reach — homeowners associations, apartment communities, parks, breweries, wedding venues, and special events. That is where the revenue scales. It is also where a policy built to your franchise minimums runs out of room.

Commercial clients do not ask what your franchise agreement requires. They send their own certificate requirements. A property management company wants $2,000,000 per occurrence, sometimes $5,000,000 with an umbrella. An event venue wants to be named as an additional insured for the date. A municipality wants higher limits and proof of pollution coverage before it will let you treat a public park.

Your Mosquito Squad agreement requires $1,000,000 per occurrence and no pollution policy at all. That satisfied your franchisor. It does not satisfy the commercial client whose contract would have meaningfully grown your business. The gap is not a claim — it is a signed deal you cannot close, and it is the most common way a Mosquito Squad franchisee leaves money on the table.

This is the defining claim for a misting business, and it is the exact coverage Mosquito Squad's agreement leaves out. Misting applications create fine airborne droplets by design. That is how they reach mosquitoes and ticks across a yard — and it is also how a treatment travels past a property line on a breeze.

When a Mosquito Squad treatment drifts onto a neighbor's vegetable garden, ornamental beds, pond, or beehive, you have a property damage claim framed as a pesticide event. And here is the gap: standard general liability carries a pollution exclusion, which removes coverage for bodily injury or property damage caused by the discharge or dispersal of a contaminant. Most carriers treat a pesticide as a contaminant. So the standard policy your franchise agreement accepts will likely deny the most predictable claim in your business.

The coverage that closes the gap is contractors pollution liability — a separate policy that covers bodily injury and property damage from the chemicals you apply, including drift. The Mosquito Squad agreement does not require it. For a misting operation treating dense neighborhoods and commercial properties, that is not a peripheral coverage. It is the primary one, and the FDD does not mention it.

The expanded Mosquito Squad service line — ants, roaches, spiders, fleas, and more — moves treatments closer to where people live and eat. Perimeter and indoor-adjacent applications for general pests raise a different version of the chemical claim: contamination of surfaces, food, or a kitchen the customer uses an hour later.

A customer who finds residue on a countertop where food is prepared, or who believes a treatment tainted produce from a treated garden, has a property damage and potential bodily injury claim. Like drift, it is a chemical claim, and it meets the same pollution exclusion on a standard general liability policy. The brand's move into general pest control widens the surface area for this exact loss.

This is the second reason standalone pollution coverage matters for a Mosquito Squad operation, and why the limit and wording matter as much as having it. A pollution policy written for a pesticide applicator should respond to surface and food contamination and to third-party bodily injury from your chemistry — not just to an outdoor cleanup. Confirm your coverage names those exposures, because the FDD gives you no floor to start from.

The honest answer is that your premium depends on details specific to your operation. What you can understand is how the number is built — and the part that catches franchisees at year-end.

General liability for a pest control business is usually rated on your revenue, sometimes on payroll. The carrier estimates your exposure when the policy starts and reconciles it at an audit — the carrier's year-end review that compares the revenue or payroll you estimated against what you actually did, then adjusts the premium up or down. For a brand whose owners can scale revenue quickly across commercial routes, that gap between estimate and reality is where audit surprises live.

Workers' compensation is priced with a formula: your payroll divided by 100, multiplied by your state's rate for the pest control classification (NCCI code 7720), multiplied by your experience modification. The rate per $100 of payroll is set by your state's rating bureau, not the carrier — the insurer applies the state's number and runs the same year-end payroll audit. That rate varies widely by state, so identical crews cost very different premium in different markets.

Mosquito Squad's agreement covers the basics but leaves the trade's biggest exposure unaddressed and sets its other optional limits low. The work for experienced operators is to add the pollution coverage the FDD never mentions and to raise the limits the FDD set at startup levels. The recommendations below are baselines for a newer franchisee, calibrated to your revenue, payroll, and how much commercial and event work you take on.

Contractors pollution liability — the coverage the FDD leaves out entirely. This is the most important gap in the agreement. It covers pesticide drift, surface and food contamination, and third-party bodily injury from your chemistry — exactly what a standard general liability pollution exclusion removes. For a misting brand, the standard is $1,000,000 each occurrence and aggregate, written for pesticide application, raised higher for dense or commercial routes. Carry it before your first commercial season.

Higher general liability limits for commercial work. The FDD's $1,000,000 satisfies the franchisor but not the property managers, venues, and municipalities you want as clients. Build to the $2,000,000 or higher per-occurrence limits commercial certificates routinely demand.

A commercial umbrella driven by your commercial reach. An umbrella adds a layer of limit above your general liability, auto, and employers liability. Mosquito Squad's commercial and special-event work changes the math: a misting application at a crowded event, a drift incident across a multi-unit community, or a fleet accident on a busy metro route can exceed a $1,000,000 stack, and commercial clients frequently require $2,000,000 to $5,000,000 on the certificate. For this brand's actual work mix, an umbrella is not optional dressing — it is the layer that lets you win commercial accounts and survive a severe drift or event claim. Size it to the contracts you pursue.

Employment practices liability above the recommended $25,000. The FDD recommends $25,000, which is thin. Even a seasonal crew produces wrongful termination, discrimination, and wage-and-hour exposure, and seasonal hiring raises wage-and-hour risk specifically. The standard starting point is $250,000, scaling as you add technicians.

Cyber above the recommended $25,000. Your online booking and stored payment data create a breach exposure the FDD recommends covering at only $25,000. The standard for a newer franchisee is $250,000, with social engineering and ransomware included.

Commercial crime with third-party coverage at $250,000. The FDD does not require it. Technicians access yards, gates, garages, and commercial grounds. Third-party crime coverage protects against employee theft from a customer's property — a different insuring agreement than standard crime coverage, which protects only the business itself. The standard is $250,000.

Keep the performance bond separate. If the franchisor requires a performance bond up to $50,000, that is a surety bond guaranteeing your obligations — not pollution or liability coverage. Carry it for compliance, but do not let it create a false sense that your chemical exposure is covered. It is not.