RE-BATH

We do not have a current Re-Bath FDD on file, so this guide cannot publish your exact compliance requirements. Insurance requirements vary by franchisor and change every year, and the specific limits, endorsements, and entity names live in Item 8 of your franchise agreement. Putting an unverified entity on a certificate of insurance creates its own problem, so we will not guess at it.

This is the claim that defines bathroom remodeling. You connect to existing plumbing, set a pan, and finish a wet wall. If the waterproofing membrane behind the new shower is not perfect, water moves where you cannot see it.

The franchisee from the opening lived this. A small gap at the pan-to-wall transition let water seep into the wall cavity over four months. The drywall rotted, mold colonized the framing, and the ceiling below stained. The customer's claim covered the tear-out, the mold remediation, the new framing, and the redone shower — $41,000 in all. The franchisee filed on their general liability policy and waited.

The carrier denied most of it. Standard general liability carries a pollution exclusion, and most insurers treat mold as a pollutant. The portion tied to redoing the franchisee's own faulty waterproofing fell under the "your work" exclusion, which removes coverage for damage to the work the contractor performed. The franchisee paid the remediation and the rebuild out of pocket. Contractors pollution liability — coverage that responds to mold and contamination your work releases or disturbs — would have answered the largest piece of that claim. That coverage runs roughly $1,000 to $2,000 a year for a remodeler.

One sentence of prevention: carry contractors pollution liability with mold coverage, because water behind a wall is not a question of if for a bathroom remodeler but when.

Franchisees read "property damage" on their general liability policy and assume it covers a job that goes wrong. It does not work that way, and the surprise usually arrives with a denial letter.

A franchisee installed a tile surround on a tub-to-shower conversion. Within six months the tile began cracking and popping off the wall because the substrate behind it was not properly prepared. The customer demanded the whole surround be torn out and redone — about $9,500 of work. The franchisee assumed their general liability would pay, since the policy clearly listed property damage coverage.

The carrier denied the claim. General liability is built to cover damage your work causes to other property and bodily injury from a sudden accident. It is not built to pay for fixing your own faulty workmanship. Insurers call this the "your work" exclusion, and "bad workmanship" is the exact phrase they use in the denial. The only sliver of coverage would have been resulting damage to something other than the tile itself. There was none here — just the franchisee's own work to redo. Contractors errors and omissions coverage, which responds to financial loss from professional and workmanship errors, is the policy that addresses this gap. The franchisee absorbed the $9,500 and the lost weekend of crew time.

One sentence of prevention: contractors errors and omissions coverage with a faulty workmanship feature is what stands behind your craftsmanship; general liability never will.

You work inside someone's home, and their things are everywhere. A vanity full of toiletries, a heirloom mirror, the hardwood hallway your crew carries demo debris across. When something of theirs gets damaged, the coverage question is narrower than most franchisees expect.

A crew was removing a cast-iron tub and lost control of it on the way out. The tub gouged the customer's refinished hardwood floor in the hall and cracked a tile at the bathroom threshold. The repair to the floor came to $6,800. This is the kind of loss general liability is actually built for — sudden, accidental damage to the customer's other property during your operations, not damage to your own work. The claim was paid.

The line to understand is care, custody, and control. Many general liability policies limit or exclude damage to property in your care while you are working on it. The customer's floor in the hallway is usually covered as other property. A fixture you were actively installing when you broke it may fall under that care, custody, and control limitation. Knowing where your policy draws that line — before a claim — is the difference between a quick payment and an argument.

One sentence of prevention: ask your agent in writing how your policy treats damage to customer property in your care, so you know the answer before a tub meets a hardwood floor.

Re-Bath promotes an employee installation model, and many franchisees run mostly with their own crews. Even so, the busy season pulls in help — a plumber for a tricky rough-in, a tile setter on a backlog. The moment a 1099 worker touches a job, your coverage has to answer for them.

Picture a plumber you brought in on a 1099 basis to move a drain line. The connection he made failed inside the wall two weeks after the job, flooding the room below and causing $18,000 in damage. He carries no insurance of his own. The customer comes after you, because you are the name on the contract. Two things determine whether you are protected. First, your general liability may contain a subcontractor exclusion, which removes coverage for damage tied to a worker you hired. Check your policy before the next 1099 job, not after. Second, your policy needs independent contractors liability, which extends your coverage to the work of the subs you bring in. Without that, an uninsured sub's mistake becomes your uninsured loss.

One sentence of prevention: confirm independent contractors liability is on your policy and collect a current certificate from every sub before they start, so their failure does not become your bill.

There is no Re-Bath FDD on file here, so there is no Item 7 figure to cite. Coverage requirements and any cost estimate would be in the franchise agreement you obtain from the franchisor. What you can plan around is how the two biggest lines are built, because that logic does not change from one carrier to the next.

Your general liability premium for a remodeling business is usually rated on your revenue, sometimes on payroll or payments to subcontractors. The carrier charges a rate per $1,000 of receipts, estimates your exposure at the start, then runs an audit at year end. An audit is the carrier's review that compares the revenue or payroll you estimated against what you actually did, and adjusts the premium up or down. Suppose you estimate $300,000 in revenue and finish at $550,000. If your general liability is rated near $7 per $1,000 of receipts, the audit adds about $1,750 (250 × $7), billed as a lump sum a few months after the year closes.

Workers' compensation is built on a different formula: payroll divided by 100, times a state rate for your class code, times your experience modification. The per-$100 rate is set by your state's rating bureau, not chosen by the insurance company. The carrier applies the state's number and audits your payroll the same way it audits revenue. The governing code for an interior remodeling crew is a carpentry classification (commonly code 5645), and it runs higher than a light service trade because the work involves demolition and power tools.

The subcontractor side carries two separate risks. The audit risk is financial: any 1099 payroll without a current workers' compensation certificate is treated as your payroll at year end, and you get a premium bill. The injury risk is more serious: a sub hurt on your job who has no coverage of their own may have their medical bills and lost wages become your direct obligation. Both risks disappear with a current certificate collected before the work starts — and a lapsed certificate counts the same as no certificate at audit.

The practical takeaway: estimate your revenue and payroll close to reality, and if a strong run of jobs pushes you well past your estimate, ask your carrier for a mid-term adjustment. Spreading the increase across your remaining payments keeps a single large audit bill from landing months later. An audit is reconciliation, not a penalty — it can refund you if you overestimated.

Insurance premium for a Re-Bath 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.

Once you have your franchise agreement, treat its insurance section as the floor — the minimum the franchisor needs you to carry. The coverage below is calibrated to a newer franchisee's operation: your revenue, your payroll, your crew size, and how much work you take on. It scales up as you grow. These are not always required, but experienced bathroom remodelers carry them for clear reasons.

The first is contractors pollution liability. Bathroom work is wet work, and standard general liability excludes pollution, which carriers read to include mold. Slow water intrusion behind a new shower is the signature claim in this trade, and this coverage is what answers it. A standalone policy runs about $1 million per occurrence and aggregate; a limited pollution extension on your general liability is a lighter-weight option where the standalone is not cost-justified.

The second is contractors errors and omissions coverage at $1,000,000. You provide design consultation, 3D renderings, and product specifications for customer approval. That design role, plus your installation workmanship, creates financial-loss exposure your general liability is built to exclude. This is the coverage that stands behind a tile job that fails or a layout that does not work as specified.

A few more are worth a look. Employers liability is the sister coverage on your workers' compensation policy; it responds when an injured worker sues you as the employer rather than collecting benefits, and the standard limit is $1,000,000 each accident. Cyber liability at $250,000 covers a breach of the customer payment and personal data in your booking and design systems, and includes a sub-limit for the spoofed-vendor wire fraud that is the most common loss for a small business. Commercial crime at $250,000 with a third-party endorsement and a loss discovered form covers theft, including theft from a customer's home by a worker who spends days inside it. 

Employment practices liability at $250,000 covers a discrimination or harassment claim from an employee and scales as you pass ten employees or $750,000 in revenue. An inland marine equipment floater sized to your actual tool and material value covers your equipment wherever it travels, which your standard property coverage does not.

On the umbrella question, bathroom remodeling sits lower on the severity scale than structural work. Most of the realistic worst cases — water damage, a damaged floor, a failed tile job — sit inside a $1 million general liability stack. An umbrella becomes relevant when you take commercial or multi-unit accounts that demand higher certificates, or when job sizes and property values climb. Until then, the better spend is getting the pollution and design coverage right.