Everyone says it. Almost nobody explains it.
It's on every home-service website in America, usually in the same breath, usually without detail. Here's what each piece actually does for you.
Licensed
Means the business is registered and legally permitted to operate.
Worth knowing: Utah does not require a specialized trade license for window cleaning the way it does for electrical or plumbing work. So "licensed" here generally means a properly registered business entity — real, filed, and traceable — rather than a trade certification.
That's still meaningful. It's the difference between a business and a guy with a bucket. It just isn't the same as a licensed electrician.
Bonded
A surety bond is a third-party guarantee that covers specific failures — typically failing to complete contracted work, or in some forms, theft by an employee.
Honest take: bonding matters more in construction and in trades where large deposits are taken up front. For a residential window cleaning visit, it's the least relevant of the three. It's not nothing, but if a company leads with "bonded" and gets vague about insurance, that's backwards.
Insured — the one that matters
Two separate coverages, and you want both.
General liability. Covers damage to your property. A ladder into a window. A dropped tool through a skylight. A broken pane. Without it, you're negotiating with a small business's bank account.
Workers' compensation. Covers their people if they're hurt on your property. This is the one homeowners consistently underrate. If an uninsured worker is seriously injured at your house, you can find yourself pulled into that — with your homeowner's policy, and potentially with liability beyond it.
Given that about half of all emergency-room-treated ladder-fall injuries happen from six to ten feet — ordinary house height — this isn't a theoretical risk in this trade.
How to actually verify it
Don't just ask "are you insured?" Everyone says yes.
Ask: "Can you send me a certificate of insurance?"
A COI is a standard one-page document from the insurer listing coverage types, limits, and dates. Any legitimately insured company can produce one in a couple of minutes — it's a routine request from commercial clients. You can call the listed agent to verify it's current.
If a company hedges, delays, or gets annoyed by that question, you have your answer.
What we carry
We're licensed, insured, and happy to send you the certificate before we ever set foot on your property. Just ask — it's a reasonable question and we'd rather you asked everyone.
Questions about coverage? Call us at (801) 698-9900 or get a free quote.