Cleaning business insurance in Georgia.
Georgia has no state licence for cleaning companies, which means the words on your vendor application carry all the weight instead. General liability, a janitorial bond, workers' comp once you reach three employees, and the auto exposure nobody quotes until you ask. We put the package together so "licensed, bonded, and insured" is true when you say it. Zero agency fees, ever.
What a Georgia account actually asks you to produce.
Almost every commercial cleaning contract in Georgia turns on paperwork somebody else wrote. These six are what that paperwork is usually asking for.
General liability
A mop bucket tipped down an office corridor, a countertop chipped by a floor machine, a visitor who slips where your crew just finished. No Georgia property manager adds a cleaner to the vendor list without seeing this one first.
Janitorial bond
The "bonded" half of the phrase clients keep using. It answers a claim that one of your people took something from a customer, and office and medical accounts in Atlanta and Savannah ask for it by name. See all the bonds we place.
Workers' compensation
Generally required in Georgia once you regularly employ three or more people, and part-timers count. If you are an LLC or a corporation, members and officers count toward the three even when they waive coverage for themselves.
Commercial auto & hired/non-owned
Crews running Atlanta traffic between accounts, some in company vans and some in their own cars. The second group is the gap, and it is the one owners find out about after a wreck rather than before.
Equipment & supplies
Floor machines, pressure washers, backpack vacuums, and the supplies that ride from job to job. Standard property insurance tends to stop at the door of your building; this does not.
Lost key coverage
One lost master key can mean rekeying an entire office building at your expense. The endorsement picks that up, and no Georgia janitorial account should be serviced without it.
What Georgia cleaning company owners should know.
When a Georgia client asks whether you are "licensed, bonded, and insured," the first word means something different here than people assume. Georgia issues no state licence for cleaning services. Licensing runs through local government: an Occupation Tax Certificate from the city or county you operate in, and Atlanta, Savannah, Augusta, Columbus, and Macon-Bibb each run their own process. If you formed an LLC or a corporation, you also owe the Secretary of State an annual registration, filed between January 1 and April 1. Miss it and the entity can be administratively dissolved, which is a bad thing to discover while a certificate of insurance is being checked against a vendor application.
The workers' comp line lands a full employee earlier in Georgia than in South Carolina. Coverage is generally required once you regularly employ three or more people, part-time staff included, and cleaning crews are built almost entirely on part-timers. If you are incorporated or an LLC, officers and members count toward the three as well, and waiving coverage for an officer does not bring the count back down. Owners who ran a three-person crew in South Carolina without comp are often surprised to find the same crew needs it the moment the work crosses into Georgia.
What you clean moves the price as much as how many you employ. Residential maid work, commercial janitorial, carpet and upholstery, window washing, and post-construction cleanup all underwrite differently, and the carrier that is comfortable with houses may pull back the moment a medical office or a restaurant kitchen joins the schedule. Tell us the real mix, including the accounts you are chasing rather than only the ones you hold, and we will shop it against carriers open to that mix in Georgia right now.
- Certificates issued same day, with the additional insured wording the account asks for
- Janitorial bonds placed alongside the liability, not weeks later
- Comp quoted against the Georgia three-employee count, officers included
- New Georgia ventures welcome, including first-year cleaning businesses
Carriers that want cleaning companies
A carrier that likes residential maid service in Georgia may decline the same company once post-construction cleanup shows up on the schedule. Knowing who is open to which mix is the part that moves your premium.
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Georgia cleaning business insurance questions, answered
What insurance does a cleaning business need in Georgia?
General liability first, because no commercial account will take you without it, plus a janitorial bond for offices, medical suites, and property management work. Workers' compensation is generally required once you regularly employ three or more people. Add commercial auto or hired and non-owned coverage for the driving, and equipment coverage for machines that travel. We package it around the kind of cleaning you actually do.
Do I need a licence to run a cleaning business in Georgia?
Not a state one. Georgia issues no statewide licence for cleaning services. What you need is local: an Occupation Tax Certificate from the city or county where you operate, and Atlanta, Savannah, Augusta, Columbus, and Macon-Bibb each handle that differently. If you set up an LLC or a corporation, you also file an annual registration with the Secretary of State between January 1 and April 1, and letting that lapse can get the entity administratively dissolved.
Do I need workers' comp for my cleaning crew in Georgia?
Generally yes, once you regularly employ three or more people, and part-time staff count toward the three. If your business is an LLC or a corporation, officers and members count as well, even where they have waived coverage for themselves. That is one employee earlier than the South Carolina rule, so a crew that was under the line in SC can be over it in Georgia.
What does "licensed, bonded, and insured" mean for a Georgia cleaner?
Bonded means a janitorial bond, which responds when a client claims one of your people stole from them. Insured means general liability for the damage and the injuries. Licensed, in Georgia, means your local Occupation Tax Certificate and a business entity in good standing, not a state cleaning licence, because no such licence exists. We can put the bond and the insurance in place together so the whole phrase is true.
Does my insurance cover damage to a client's building?
That is the main job of general liability: the broken fixture, the scratched floor, the bleach mark on a carpet. The catch worth knowing is care, custody, and control. Damage to the specific item your crew was working on can fall outside the policy depending on the wording, so limits and endorsements matter more here than most owners expect. We walk through how your policy would actually respond before you bind it.
My crew drives their own cars between Georgia accounts. Am I covered?
Not automatically. If one of them causes a wreck while driving between your jobs, your business can be pulled into the claim, and their personal auto policy is written to protect them and not you. Hired and non-owned auto coverage closes that gap, costs very little, and we include it in Georgia cleaning quotes by default rather than waiting for the question.
Are you licensed in Georgia?
Yes. Griffin Insurance Agency is licensed for property, casualty, and commercial lines in Georgia, North Carolina, and South Carolina, and we place Georgia cleaning and janitorial risks with carriers appointed in the state. We are based in Sumter, South Carolina, and quotes, certificates, and bonds are handled by phone, text, or online.
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Based in Sumter and licensed across South Carolina. We serve Sumter, Manning, Camden, Bishopville, Lugoff, Columbia, Florence, and every county in between.