Kansas Flooring Contractor Insurance

Kansas gives a flooring contractor no state license to hold, because cities and counties set contractor licensing here, yet the lead-safe renovation license a firm needs in older housing comes from the state: the Kansas Department of Health and Environment runs its own renovation program under EPA’s authorization, so the license is a Kansas one rather than a federal certificate. Around that pairing, the same department’s asbestos program reaches flooring removal through friable mastic and underlayment, and workers’ compensation is compulsory for the employments the act covers and is bought from the private market, since Kansas has no state insurer for private employers.

That pairing runs against an easy assumption. Owners who hear that a state leaves licensing to local government sometimes expect it to leave everything else to the federal government, and here it does not. Kansas findings appear below one at a time, printed as verified, with the source quoted where its wording carries the point and a note on what each asks of an owner bidding work here.

How a policy answers a claim is the same question in every state, so it is handled on the flooring contractor insurance page and the pages it links to. This page sticks to Kansas, whether you run a residential flooring crew in occupied homes, a commercial flooring outfit working under general contractors, a carpet installation company or a tile and stone shop.

Where a Kansas flooring license comes from: the city or county, never the state

No statewide Kansas license covers flooring work, or general building work either. The state’s own business portal tells a new construction or contracting business that cities and counties set its licensing requirements, and Kansas statutes speak of contractor licensure only as something a county or city may require.

Authority: K.S.A. 12-1557(a), (c); K.S.A. 12-1558; K.S.A. 50-6,122(a)

The portal’s own wording is short enough to quote whole, and it puts the answer in the place a new business would look for it:

“In addition to the general requirements for starting a business in Kansas, cities and counties set licensing requirements for construction or contracting businesses.”

That leaves the license question to the city or county where the floor goes in. Many of them do license contractors: Johnson County, for one, issues general, building and residential contractor licenses for construction, alteration, repair and demolition work, and asks applicants for proof of workers’ compensation coverage when the company has employees. A license earned by passing the state-designated examination in one county or city is honored by any other county or city that requires examinations for the same license. The state’s one contractor registration, under the Kansas Roofing Registration Act, covers roofing services and does not reach flooring.

The examination point in that finding is the one owners tend to miss. A license is not automatically portable, but where a county or city tests applicants with the state-designated examination, the statute makes the result travel:

“All such licenses shall be valid in any other county or city which requires examination and licensure of such contractors for practice in such county or city.”

That is a narrower promise than it first sounds: it runs only between places that examine for the same license.

The Johnson County Contractor Licensing office is the record’s example of a county that does license. Its program reaches contractors who construct, alter, repair or demolish structures in the county’s licensing area, through general, building and residential contractor license classes; the county’s list of license types names no separate flooring class. That last clause matters to a flooring company sizing up a job there: the work is not sorted into a flooring class, so the question to put to the county is which of its contractor classes, if any, the scope of your job falls under.

The one statewide contractor program Kansas does run is for a different trade, and its definition shows why it stops at the roof:

“Engages in the business of commercial or residential roofing services for a fee”

Some habits suit a state where the license map is drawn county by county:

• Put a licensing line on the bid checklist for every new city or county, and settle it before the estimate goes out rather than after the contract comes back.
• Note, for each office, whether it licenses contractors, which class it would put your work in and whether it examines for that class, since that last answer decides whether a license from elsewhere carries in.
• When a county asks for proof of workers’ compensation as part of an application, as the record says Johnson County does for a company with employees, line that request up with your policy dates before you apply.

Certificates and additional insured wording requested by a general contractor ahead of a commercial start belong to the commercial flooring contractor insurance page; what a homeowner may ask to see is covered on the residential page.

A state firm license, not an EPA certificate, for lead-safe flooring work in Kansas

In Kansas, renovation, repair and painting (RRP) work is governed by a state program, authorized by EPA and run by the Kansas Department of Health and Environment, so a flooring firm working in covered older housing or child-occupied facilities in Kansas is licensed by the state rather than by EPA. The department requires the firm itself to hold a lead renovation firm license, and covered renovations to be performed or directed by a certified renovator.

Authority: K.A.R. 28-72-51(n); K.A.R. 28-72-52(a); K.A.R. 28-72-10a; K.S.A. 65-1,202; 40 CFR Part 745

EPA’s own page is where the arrangement starts. The agency runs the renovation program in most places, then lists the ones it has handed the program to, and Kansas is on that list:

“EPA administers the RRP Program in most Tribes, states and territories, but has authorized the following to operate their own programs: Alabama, Delaware, Georgia, Iowa, Kansas, Massachusetts, Mississippi, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Oregon, Rhode Island, Utah, Vermont, Wisconsin and the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe-Boise Forte (Nette Lake).”

The state side of the arrangement is put plainly in the department’s answers to contractors:

“Firms must be licensed by KDHE. To become licensed, renovation contractors must submit an application and fee payment to KDHE.”

The state rule applies its renovation requirements to renovation of target housing performed for compensation and takes its definition of renovation from the federal rule, so pulling painted baseboards, trim or thresholds in an older home can bring the license and the lead-safe work practices into play. The department’s answer to a handyman working alone is that both an individual certification and a firm license are needed, and work by an unlicensed firm on a covered job must stop until the firm and its workers are trained and licensed. Lead inspection, risk assessment and abatement are a separate lead activity firm license from the same department.

For a small flooring company, the department’s answer to the single-person business is worth reading in its own words, because owners who work alone often assume a personal certificate is the whole requirement:

“Yes, you will need both the individual and the firm license.”

Floors themselves rarely carry paint. What a crew disturbs is at the edge of the room: the baseboard lifted so new flooring can run under it, the shoe molding, the threshold at a doorway, the casing trimmed to clear a thicker floor. Those are the pieces the obligation sentence names, and they are where a walkthrough should start. Questions worth asking before the price is set:

• Ask the age of the house or facility first. The record ties the program to older housing and child-occupied facilities, so the answer belongs on the estimate.
• Is the work paid renovation of target housing? The obligation sentence above ties the state rule to exactly that.
• Which firm will remove or cut the painted trim? Where a carpenter or painter handles it, know whose firm license covers that part before the crew arrives.
• Does your company hold its own firm license from the department, and is a certified renovator assigned to this job?

Visits to older homes tend to raise several of these questions at once, which is part of why the residential flooring contractor insurance page gives them space. Lead or other contaminants in a liability claim raise a policy question, and the general liability page works through it.

Friable mastic and old tile: how the Kansas asbestos license reaches a tear-out

The Kansas Department of Health and Environment’s Bureau of Air runs the state asbestos program, and it reaches flooring removal through friability. Kansas law requires a department license before a business removes or encapsulates friable asbestos-containing material, and the department lists mastic adhesives for vinyl floors and paper flooring underlayment among the friable materials. Vinyl floor tile is generally non-friable, but the department warns that non-friable material becomes friable when it is crushed, pulverized or mechanically disturbed.

Authority: K.S.A. 65-5301(a); K.S.A. 65-5302(a); K.A.R. 28-50-1(l), (ee); 40 CFR 61.145

The license requirement turns on one word, and the statute uses it to draw the line between work anyone may do and work that needs the department’s license:

“Except as otherwise provided in this act, no business entity shall engage in an asbestos project unless the entity holds a license issued by the secretary for that purpose.”

An asbestos project, in the act’s definition, is removing or encapsulating friable material, so the question for a flooring crew is which of the things under an old floor are friable. The department’s fact sheet answers it for two materials a crew meets all the time, listing among its friable examples:

“Mastic adhesives for vinyl floors, carpets and ceiling tiles”

“Paper underlayment for flooring”

The tile on top is classed the other way, at least while it stays whole. That fact sheet files it among the non-friable materials:

“Category I non-friable includes asbestos packings, gaskets, resilient floor covering, …”

Then comes the sentence that ties the classification to the crew’s tools:

“However, non-friable ACMs can become friable if crushed, pulverized or mechanically disturbed by other means (e.g., by using a hammer or drill).”

Before a flooring crew scrapes old adhesive or breaks up older resilient tile in a commercial or public building, the material should be tested, and friable asbestos work goes to a business licensed by the department with certified workers. The federal asbestos rule the department enforces also requires an inspection before any renovation or demolition of a commercial or public structure. The Kansas and federal regulations leave out a homeowner working on their own residence, but not a contractor hired to do that work.

“The NESHAP requires the owner or operator to have an inspection completed prior to any renovation or demolition of commercial or public structures.”

Taken together, the removal method becomes part of the licensing question. Tile lifted whole sits on one side of the line; adhesive scraped from the slab, paper underlayment torn up, or tile broken out with a hammer or a machine can put the job on the other. A flooring company without a department license has every reason to decide how old material will come up before it quotes the removal.

The residential exclusion is narrower than it is often taken to be:

“Although homeowners doing work on their own residence are not covered under the Kansas or federal regulations”

The exclusion belongs to the homeowner doing the work, and the obligation sentence above notes that it does not extend to a contractor hired to do that same work. Some habits follow:

• Before pricing a commercial or public tear-out, get the inspection from the owner or the general contractor, and read what it says about the adhesive and underlayment, not only the tile.
• State the method of removal in the proposal, and treat any change in method after the old floor is opened as a conversation with the owner rather than a decision at the slab.
• Walk the crew lead through the inspection report. A second layer nobody mentioned is usually found by the person holding the scraper.

Asbestos in a claim, and the treatment of finished work once the owner is back in the room, are questions for the general liability page. Contract insurance terms come on top when a commercial tear-out runs under a general contractor, which the commercial page covers, and the tile and stone page deals with the demolition side of tile work.

Kansas workers’ compensation: compulsory, privately insured, and reaching up the contract chain

Coverage is compulsory for the employments the Kansas act covers, and the act leaves out an employer whose total gross annual payroll stays at or under the figure quoted below as printed. A covered employer secures the coverage with an insurance carrier authorized to write it in Kansas, by qualifying as a self-insurer, or through membership in a qualified group-funded pool. Kansas has no state insurer for private employers; coverage comes from the private market.

Authority: K.S.A. 44-505(a), (b); K.S.A. 44-532(b), (c); K.S.A. 44-503(a), (g)

The exception in the act most likely to matter to a small flooring company is the payroll one, and it is printed here as the statute words it:

“any employment, other than those employments in which the employer is the state, or any department, agency or authority of the state, wherein the employer had a total gross annual payroll for the preceding calendar year of not more than $20,000 for all employees and wherein the employer reasonably estimates that such employer will not have a total gross annual payroll for the current calendar year of more than $20,000 for all employees”

For everyone the act does reach, the first of the routes for securing payment is the private policy:

“Every employer shall secure the payment of compensation to the employer's employees by insuring in one of the following ways: (1) By insuring and keeping insured the payment of such compensation with an insurance carrier authorized to transact the business of workers compensation insurance in the state of Kansas;”

Knowingly failing to secure the coverage is a criminal misdemeanor under the act. When a general contractor hires a flooring subcontractor, the general contractor can be liable for compensation to the subcontractor’s workers unless the subcontractor has secured its own coverage, which is why a certificate of insurance is asked for before work starts. An employer below the payroll line may elect to come under the act.

“The knowing and intentional failure of an employer to secure the payment of workers compensation to the employer's employees as required in subsection (b) of this section is a class A misdemeanor.”

The contract-chain point deserves its own look, because it changes how a general contractor treats a flooring sub. The statute puts the principal in the position of the immediate employer:

“the principal shall be liable to pay to any worker employed in the execution of the work any compensation under the workers compensation act which the principal would have been liable to pay if that worker had been immediately employed by the principal”

Seen from the flooring company’s side, that is why a certificate of insurance is often asked for before a crew is allowed on site, and why the same question runs downhill when you hire installers of your own. Underwriting questions about payroll, and the treatment of installers paid as subcontractors, are set out on the workers’ compensation page, because those are questions about the policy rather than about Kansas.

None of these findings crosses into a neighboring state. Crews that also work in a neighboring state meet that state’s rules on their own terms.

Which Kansas office answers which question for a flooring business

The Kansas Department of Insurance regulates insurance in Kansas. Anyone can look up our agency license, as with any agency, on NIPR.com.

The remaining bodies behind this page are listed with the role the record verified for each, and each name links to the page the record cites for it:

• Kansas Business Center One Stop: the state business portal; its construction and contracting starter kit directs contractors to city and county licensing offices (no state contractor license)
• Johnson County Contractor Licensing: county contractor licensing (general, building, residential and single-trade classes)
• Kansas Department of Health and Environment: state health and environmental agency; runs the asbestos program and the lead renovation program
• Kansas Department of Health and Environment, Bureau of Air, asbestos program: asbestos business licensing, worker certification, abatement notifications and the federal asbestos rule for renovation and demolition
• Kansas Department of Health and Environment, Residential Lead Hazard Prevention Program: state-run lead program: EPA-authorized RRP renovation firm licensing and renovator certification, and lead activity firm licensing
• Kansas Department of Labor: parent department of the Division of Workers Compensation
• Kansas Department of Labor, Division of Workers Compensation: workers’ compensation administration, self-insurance qualification and enforcement of the duty to secure coverage

Missing here, by design, are a statewide board that licenses flooring contractors, for the reason the licensing section explains, and a state insurer selling workers’ compensation to private employers. In an ordinary week the offices a flooring owner deals with most are the city and county licensing desks where the jobs are, and no statewide list can name those for you.

Kansas metro areas where a crew may meet a different licensing office

Kansas’s largest metropolitan areas appear in these cards as the U.S. Census Bureau delineates them. All but the last have a principal city in Kansas; the last is centered across the state line and is carried for its Kansas county. Where a metro crosses the border, its card names only the Kansas side, since under the licensing finding above it is those cities and counties that set the rule.

From Kansas findings to the policies a flooring business carries

So much for where the Kansas rules sit; answering for the work itself is the job of the policies a flooring business carries anywhere, each explained on its own page:

• Third-party injury and property damage, finished work and tear-out included: general liability.
• Covering your own employees, subcontracted installers being the hard case: workers’ compensation.
• Protecting the stretchers, saws, sanders and stock you haul between jobs: inland marine coverage for contractors’ tools and equipment.

Their relative weight depends on the work, which is why a carpet installation company and a tile and stone shop each have their own page. To have the pieces assembled for Kansas jobs, start with a quote request.

What the state sets

Where we discuss it

Contractor license No statewide license reaches this work

→

General Liability

Lead-safe renovation The state runs its own lead-safe program

→

Residential Flooring Contractor Insurance

Asbestos flooring and mastic A state program reaches flooring removal

→

General Liability

Workers’ compensation Bought in the open market

→

Workers Compensation

A panel for Kansas in rows. Contractor license: no statewide license reaches this work. It connects to the General Liability page. Lead-safe renovation: the state runs its own lead-safe program. It connects to the Residential Flooring Contractor Insurance page. Asbestos flooring and mastic: a state program reaches flooring removal. It connects to the General Liability page. Workers’ compensation: bought in the open market. It connects to the Workers Compensation page. Each row pairs a state rule with the page on this site that discusses it. No figures are shown.