MR. ROOTER PLUMBING

The Mr. Rooter franchise agreement names Mr. Rooter SPV LLC as the franchisor. That is the exact legal entity name that must appear as additional insured on your certificate of insurance. The named insured is your legal business entity — your LLC or corporation. These two roles cannot be reversed on the certificate.

Note: A franchise disclosure document for Mr. Rooter has not been extracted into Rikor's database at the time this article was written. The coverage requirements below reflect Rikor's plumbing benchmark values and the confirmed Neighborly franchise pattern for brands in this system. Review your executed franchise agreement for current, binding requirements before binding coverage.

General liability is required at a minimum of $1,000,000 per occurrence and $2,000,000 aggregate on an occurrence form. The occurrence form is standard for Neighborly-affiliated brands — not claims-made. Your certificate must name Mr. Rooter SPV LLC as additional insured. Neighborly brand agreements typically require primary and non-contributory language and a waiver of subrogation in the franchisor's favor. Verify these endorsements in your executed agreement before binding.

Commercial auto is required at $1,000,000 combined single limit, covering any auto — owned, hired, and non-owned. Every vehicle used for a Mr. Rooter job needs to be covered. Personal auto policies exclude business use.

Workers' compensation is required at statutory limits for your state with employers liability at $1,000,000 each accident, $1,000,000 disease per employee, and $1,000,000 disease policy limit. A waiver of subrogation in favor of Mr. Rooter SPV LLC is typical in Neighborly agreements — confirm in your executed agreement.

Umbrella or excess liability is required at $2,000,000 per occurrence and $2,000,000 aggregate. The umbrella sits above your general liability, auto, and employers liability limits and extends them when a claim exceeds the primary limits.

That satisfies your franchisor. Here is where the requirement ends before your real risk does.

The short answer is: the standard general liability policy almost certainly does not cover sewage-related claims — and sewer backup and septic work are the events most likely to trigger that exclusion on a Mr. Rooter franchise.

The mechanism is the pollution exclusion. The standard general liability pollution exclusion removes coverage for bodily injury or property damage arising from the release, escape, or migration of pollutants. In most policy forms, pollutants include sewage. A sewer backup job that causes sewage to discharge onto a neighbor's property — or into a customer's home — is a pollutant release under standard policy language, not an ordinary property damage claim.

Mr. Rooter's confirmed services include sewer line work, septic service, and drain cleaning with chemical treatments. Every one of those service lines creates pollution exclusion exposure on the standard general liability policy. That exposure is not an edge case. It is the primary claim scenario for this service category.

No. A technician who drives their personal vehicle to a job site and gets into an accident is not covered by your commercial auto policy. They are not covered by their own personal auto policy either — personal auto policies exclude business use.

This is the hired and non-owned auto gap. Your commercial auto policy covers vehicles you own or lease for business. Hired auto coverage extends that to vehicles you rent or borrow. Non-owned auto coverage extends it to vehicles owned by others — including employees — when they use their own vehicles on company business.

If a Mr. Rooter technician drives their personal truck to an emergency call, picks up parts, or travels between job sites in their personal vehicle, every mile is a gap in your insurance program unless non-owned auto coverage is included in your commercial auto policy. Most commercial auto policies include hired and non-owned auto as standard. Confirm it is on your declarations page — do not assume.

The other dimension is the personal vehicle a sole-owner or small franchisee uses before the business vehicle fleet is built. Driving a personally owned pickup to Mr. Rooter jobs while the commercial auto policy covers a van you use on the biggest jobs is a common setup in early-stage franchises. The result is a personal vehicle used for commercial purposes that neither the personal policy nor the commercial policy covers. Fix it before the accident happens, not after.

The audit will find it. And when it does, the reclassification will produce a premium adjustment you did not budget for.

Workers' compensation carriers classify operations using NCCI codes. Plumbing work falls under NCCI code 6400 — Plumbing, Heating and Air Conditioning. That is the code most plumbing franchise programs are built on. But sewer excavation work — digging to access or replace buried sewer lines, trenchless pipe bursting, full sewer replacement — is classified under NCCI code 6010 — Excavation. Code 6010 carries a higher rate per $100 of payroll than code 6400 in most states, because excavation work produces different and more severe injuries than standard plumbing work.

Mr. Rooter's confirmed services include sewer excavation, trenchless pipe bursting, and CIPP sewer lining — all of which fall outside standard plumbing classification at audit. A policy built on NCCI 6400 only, where the technicians who perform excavation work are included in the plumbing payroll, is misclassified for the excavation portion.

The standard general liability policy contains a subcontractor exclusion. The exclusion removes coverage for property damage and bodily injury caused by independent contractors working on your jobs. The exclusion applies regardless of whether the customer contracted with you and you subbed the work out, or whether the sub was working directly under your direction. If the sub caused the damage and the sub does not have a current certificate of insurance, your carrier invokes the exclusion.

The endorsement that removes the exclusion requires subcontractors to maintain their own general liability coverage and produce current certificates. Current means valid on the date of the job — not on the date you hired them.

For Mr. Rooter franchisees, the subcontractor exposure surfaces most often during peak demand periods — a busy spring after winter freeze-up, large commercial sewer jobs that need additional licensed plumbers, or excavation work that requires equipment operators outside the technician's license scope. These are the jobs where the sub gets called fastest and the certificate gets verified least.

Most plumbing franchisees bring in licensed 1099 plumbers during overflow weeks or for specialty work. When that plumber causes a water loss and his certificate has lapsed, your carrier finds the subcontractor exclusion before you do. Rikor's subcontractor compliance monitoring tool tracks those certificates in real time so you know before the next job starts. See how it works for plumbing franchisees →

The Done Right Promise amplifies this exposure. If a sub performs work under your franchise brand and the work fails, the customer's claim comes to you — not the sub. Your policy needs to respond. If the sub's certificate is expired, your subcontractor exclusion endorsement does not apply. The claim becomes yours without coverage for it.

The honest answer: your premium depends on factors specific to your operation that no published estimate can account for. What you can understand is how the number gets built — and what to verify before accepting a quote.

Workers' compensation is the most variable line in any plumbing franchise insurance program. For Mr. Rooter franchisees, it is also the line most likely to surprise at year-end audit if the policy was built with only one NCCI classification.

Your premium is built from a formula every carrier applies:

Your payroll ÷ 100 × your state's rate for your classification code × your experience modification = your base premium

For plumbing work, the classification is NCCI code 6400 — Plumbing, Heating and Air Conditioning. For sewer excavation, trenchless work, and pipe bursting, the classification is NCCI code 6010 — Excavation. If your operation includes both service lines, both codes need to appear on your workers' compensation declarations page with the corresponding payroll allocated to each.

The rate for NCCI 6400 varies by state. High-rate states carry rates significantly higher than lower-rate states for the same payroll. Your experience modification starts at 1.0 for new operations and adjusts based on your actual claims history. One significant workers' compensation injury can move your modification from 1.0 to 1.25 over three years — a 25 percent increase in workers' compensation premium that follows you at every renewal for that period.

What happens at audit if your subcontractor certificates are missing

Your workers' compensation carrier audits your actual payroll at year end. Payroll paid to independent contractors and 1099 workers who cannot produce a certificate showing their own workers' compensation coverage is treated as your payroll. The audit bill reflects additional premium on that amount at your classification rate.

A certificate that was current when you hired the sub and has since expired provides no protection at audit. Collect certificates before work starts. Verify they are current. A lapsed certificate produces the same audit result as no certificate.

The consistent pattern across plumbing franchise disclosure documents generally: Item 7 figures almost always reflect partial programs, often excluding workers' compensation or reflecting smaller operational footprints than a fully staffed operation. Build your budget from a real quote specific to your state, payroll, fleet, and whether your technicians perform sewer excavation work.

Five variables drive your premium more than anything else.

Your state. Workers' compensation and general liability rate filings vary significantly by state. A quote specific to your operating state is the only number that applies to your operation.

Your payroll. Workers' compensation premium scales directly with payroll — and across both codes if you perform excavation work. The difference between a plumbing-only operation and one that includes sewer excavation payroll is material at audit.

Your fleet. Each vehicle adds commercial auto premium. 

Emergency dispatch vans and trucks carrying excavation equipment are rated differently. Driver records affect the rate for every technician operating a vehicle on your jobs.

Your claims history. One significant claim affects both general liability and workers' compensation rates at renewal for three to five years. A clean loss run is worth money at every renewal.

Your subcontractor use. Any 1099 sub payroll you cannot document with a current certificate will appear in your year-end workers' compensation audit as additional premium at your classification rate.

The franchise agreement sets the floor. Experienced operators build from it.

Contractors pollution liability is the most important coverage outside the franchise minimum for any plumbing franchise that performs sewer work. The general liability pollution exclusion applies to sewage releases, drain chemicals, and sewer-adjacent contamination events. Contractors pollution liability covers bodily injury, property damage, and cleanup costs from pollutant releases during your operations. Mr. Rooter's confirmed service lines — sewer repair, septic work, drain cleaning with chemical treatments — all create pollution exclusion exposure on the standard general liability policy.

Errors and omissions insurance covers claims arising from professional judgment, service recommendations, and the failure of a workmanship commitment to meet a professional standard. The Done Right Promise creates professional obligation exposure that general liability was not written to cover. If a customer invokes the guarantee and frames the failure as a professional judgment call — the wrong method, the wrong product, the wrong recommendation for the job type — the errors and omissions policy is the coverage that responds. Experienced Mr. Rooter operators in commercial markets or those taking on complex commercial drain and sewer contracts carry this coverage specifically because commercial customers are more likely to pursue professional negligence claims when work fails.

Inland marine coverage — also called tools and equipment coverage — protects drain inspection cameras, hydro-jetting equipment, and specialty sewer tools against theft and damage when they are in the van, at a job site, or in transit. Standard commercial property covers equipment at a fixed location. Tools in a service van are not at a fixed location.

Commercial crime coverage protects against theft by employees from customer property. Plumbing technicians work unsupervised inside client homes and commercial facilities. The access pattern is the same one that drives commercial crime exposure across all in-home service trades.

A properly built Mr. Rooter franchise insurance program starts with the agreement requirements and builds from them. The minimum gets you compliant. The complete program protects what you built.

The compliance requirement — $1,000,000 general liability, occurrence form, Mr. Rooter SPV LLC as additional insured, $1,000,000 commercial auto, statutory workers' compensation with $1,000,000 employers liability, $2,000,000 umbrella — is the starting point. Confirm primary and non-contributory language and waiver of subrogation in your executed agreement.

Beyond the minimum: contractors pollution liability covers the sewer, septic, and chemical drain work the standard general liability pollution exclusion removes from the primary policy. Errors and omissions coverage addresses the Done Right Promise professional obligation exposure that general liability was not written to handle. Inland marine covers the specialty equipment that leaves your shop on every job. Commercial crime covers the access exposure that comes with every technician working unsupervised in a customer's home.

Workers' compensation requires NCCI code 6400 for plumbing work and NCCI code 6010 for any sewer excavation or trenchless work. If both service lines exist in your operation, both codes need to appear on your declarations page. Confirm this before the policy is bound. The audit will find it either way.

The franchisee who invested in this territory deserves a program built for what the operation actually does — not the minimum the agreement required when the ink was still wet.