Are House Cleaners Insured? How to Verify a Cleaner’s Insurance in California (2026)

The Short Answer

Ask for a certificate of insurance, then verify it with the carrier named on it — not with the cleaner. A real general-liability policy has a carrier, a policy number, effective dates, and per-occurrence limits (typically $1–2 million for a cleaning business). California does not license house cleaners, so “licensed” means a city business license at most; the protection you actually want is liability insurance you have confirmed is active, plus clarity on who covers an injury to the worker. Below is how to check each one.

Do house cleaners need a license in California?

No state license exists for residential cleaning. The Contractors State License Board licenses construction trades, and its bond and insurance rules apply to contractors, not cleaners — so a cleaner who says they are “CSLB licensed” is either doing construction work on the side or misunderstanding the term. What a cleaner or cleaning business in California can legitimately hold is a city or county business license (Thousand Oaks and Los Angeles both issue them), a fictitious business name filing, and insurance. Ask for the business license number if you want to confirm the business exists; ask for the insurance certificate if you want to confirm you are protected.

How to read a certificate of insurance

A certificate of insurance (COI) is a one-page summary the insurer or agent issues. Check five things: the named insured matches the person or business you are hiring; the carrier is a real insurer you can look up; the policy number is present; the effective and expiration dates cover today; and the general liability limits are stated per occurrence and in aggregate. Then call the agent or carrier on the certificate and ask whether the policy is in force. A certificate is a snapshot of the day it was printed; the call is what makes it current. You can also confirm the carrier itself is licensed to write insurance in California through the Department of Insurance’s Insurance Company Profiles and Check a License tools at insurance.ca.gov; a carrier that does not appear there is the red flag, whatever the certificate says. Maid VIP re-confirms coverage for every professional it refers on an ongoing basis for exactly this reason — the most common failure we see is a certificate that was real eighteen months ago on a policy that has since lapsed.

Liability, bond, and workers’ compensation are three different things

If you want the plain-English definitions first, insurance and bonding for home cleaning, explained covers what each term means and what a referral agency adds; this section is about telling them apart on paper.

General liability pays for damage to your property — a scratched floor, a broken fixture, a flooded bathroom. This is the coverage that matters most and the one to verify. A janitorial or fidelity bond covers theft by the worker; it is a modest, inexpensive product and some cleaners carry one, but it is not liability insurance and does not cover accidents. Workers’ compensation covers injury to the worker. In California the question of who carries it depends on the arrangement, which is the part most homeowners never think about.

Who covers an injured worker in your home

If you hire a cleaner directly and they work in your home more than a small threshold — California Labor Code §3352 excludes household workers employed fewer than 52 hours or paid less than $100 in the prior 90 days — you may be their employer for workers’ compensation purposes, and California homeowner policies are required to include coverage for residential employees (Insurance Code §11590). Check your own policy’s “residential employee” or “domestic worker” line; it is usually there. For the payroll side, the Employment Development Department’s household employer guidance at edd.ca.gov treats housekeepers, maids, and cleaners who work under your direction as household employees — a separate question from workers’ compensation, but the same test of who controls the work. If you hire a cleaning company that employs its cleaners, the company should carry workers’ compensation, and you can confirm it through the state’s workers’ compensation coverage lookup, which shows whether an employer has a policy on file. If you use a domestic referral agency, the professional is an independent worker rather than the agency’s employee, and the agency is required to tell you so in writing — see the next section. This is general information, not legal advice; a broker or attorney can confirm what applies to your household.

If you go through a referral agency

California defines a domestic referral agency in Civil Code §1812.5095 and sets conditions the agency must meet — the worker is an independent professional, sets or negotiates their own rate, can accept or reject clients, and the agency does not control how the work is done — along with written disclosures to the client. Maid VIP operates under that model: the professionals we refer carry their own liability coverage, we verify it before the first visit and re-confirm it afterward, and every referral comes with a written 24-hour re-clean policy. So the direct answer to “is the cleaner covered?” under the referral model is: by their own general-liability policy, which the agency has verified — not by an agency policy written for employees the agency does not have — and the client is told that in writing before the first visit. The full process is on the vetting page; the model itself is explained in what a domestic referral agency is.

The five-minute verification checklist

1. Ask for the certificate of insurance before the first visit.
2. Match the named insured to the person or business quoting you.
3. Confirm dates cover today and liability limits are at least $1 million per occurrence.
4. Call the carrier or agent on the certificate and ask whether the policy is active.
5. Ask who covers the worker if they are hurt in your home, and check your own homeowner policy’s residential-employee line.

More questions to ask before hiring are in questions to ask before hiring a cleaner and how to choose a cleaning service.