Michigan Flooring Contractor Insurance

Michigan licenses home improvement work at the state level: the Michigan Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs, through its Bureau of Construction Codes, licenses residential builders and residential maintenance and alteration contractors, and that license reaches paid repair, alteration and improvement work on homes, while commercial work carries no state builder license. For lead-safe renovation work the certifications come from EPA, Michigan’s own asbestos program reaches flooring removal in part, and workers’ compensation is compulsory for covered employers and comes from the private market, because Michigan has no state fund.

One question inside that first finding is still open, and this page says so rather than guessing. The license names tile and marble work among its trades, but it names no flooring or carpet trade, and the record leaves open whether a business that installs only carpet or resilient flooring on homes must hold it. You will find the finding and the gap set out below; you will not find an answer the sources do not give.

How the policies themselves work for a flooring business is explained on the flooring contractor insurance page and the pages it links to. What follows stays with Michigan, whether your crews lay floors in occupied houses as a residential flooring contractor, work on projects run by general contractors as a commercial flooring firm, run a carpet installation business, or set tile through a tile and stone shop.

Michigan’s residential license and where flooring work fits in it

Michigan licenses residential builders and residential maintenance and alteration contractors through the Bureau of Construction Codes in the Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs, and the license reaches repair, alteration and improvement work on homes. Tile and marble work is one of the trades named on the maintenance and alteration license; the list names no separate flooring or carpet trade. The state does not license commercial builders.

Authority: MCL 339.2401(b); MCL 339.2403(e), (f); MCL 339.2404(3)

The finding is a real state license with its edges drawn in the statute, and those edges are what a flooring owner needs to know. The same crew can be on one side of them on Monday and on the other side by Thursday, depending on who hired it and what kind of building it is working in.

The license question turns on the job. Contracting with a homeowner to repair, alter or improve a house falls within the law’s description of a residential maintenance and alteration contractor, a subcontractor working only under contract with a licensed builder or contractor is exempt, very small jobs are exempt as the statute sets out, and commercial work carries no state builder license, though a municipality may add its own requirements.

The statute’s definition is where the reach of the license starts. It is written in terms of what a person undertakes and how the person is paid, not in terms of a trade:

“"Residential maintenance and alteration contractor" means a person that, for a fixed sum, price, fee, percentage, valuable consideration, or other compensation, other than wages for personal labor only, does any of the following: (i) Undertakes with another for the repair, alteration, or addition to, subtraction from, improvement of, wrecking of, or demolition of a residential structure, or building of a garage, or laying of concrete on residential property.”

Read the list of verbs in that definition with a flooring job in mind. Repair, alteration, improvement and demolition all describe parts of replacing a floor in a house. The definition does not stop there, though. The license is issued by trade, and the statute prints the trades it may carry:

“A license includes the following crafts and trades: carpentry; concrete; swimming pool installation; waterproofing a basement; excavation; insulation work; masonry work; roofing; siding and gutters; screen or storm sash installation; tile and marble work; and house wrecking. A license shall specify the particular craft or trade for which the licensee is qualified.”

Tile and marble work is on that list. Carpet, resilient flooring and floor covering are not. That is the whole of the open question this page flagged at the top, stated as the sources leave it: Whether a firm that installs only carpet or resilient flooring on homes, a trade the license list does not name, must hold a maintenance and alteration license. A tile setter working on homes can see the trade named on the license; a carpet or vinyl installer cannot find an answer in the sources, only the broad definition above and a trade list that does not mention the work.

For an owner in that position, treat it as an open question: read the statute with someone qualified to advise on it, and keep the answer you reach in the company file. The Bureau’s licensing section is the office that issues the license if you decide to hold one.

Two exemptions in the statute matter to how flooring work is usually sold. The first reaches the installer who never contracts with the homeowner at all:

“A person other than the salesperson that engages solely in the business of performing work and services under contract with a residential builder or a residential maintenance and alteration contractor that is licensed under this article.”

The word that carries that exemption is solely. A flooring business that works only under licensed builders and licensed alteration contractors sits inside it; the same business taking a job straight from a homeowner is back in the definition. The second exemption, for very small jobs, is set by the statute in its own terms and is listed in the authority line above.

Commercial work is the other half of the picture, and the Bureau’s own answer is short:

“The State of Michigan Bureau of Construction Codes requires the licensing of Residential Builders not Commercial Builders.”

That does not make every commercial job free of local paperwork. As the obligation sentence above notes, a municipality may add its own requirements, and the Bureau’s answers send those questions to the municipality.

Some habits follow from a state that licenses by the kind of job:

• Mark each estimate as residential or commercial, and as contracted with the homeowner or with a licensed builder, before it goes out. Those two answers decide which parts of the statute you are reading.
• When a commercial job is in a city you have not worked in, ask the municipality what it requires during the bid, since the Bureau has said it cannot advise on local requirements.
• If you sell tile work on homes, look at the trade list on your license, or on the license of the firm you work under, and confirm the trade you are doing is on it.

Licensing and proof of insurance are separate documents from separate parties. The commercial flooring contractor insurance page covers the proof a general contractor asks to see on a commercial job, and what a homeowner may ask to see is on the residential page.

Lead-safe renovation rules on Michigan flooring jobs

Michigan has no authorized RRP program of its own, so EPA administers lead renovation, repair and painting (RRP) there, and the lead-safe firm and renovator certifications a flooring firm needs for covered renovation work come from EPA.

Authority: MCL 333.5453(2)(a); MCL 333.5458(2); MCL 333.5461(1); 40 CFR Part 745

The state is not silent on lead, and it helps to know where its program stops. The Michigan Department of Health and Human Services runs Michigan’s own lead program, and the record describes its reach this way:

For abatement, the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services runs a lead program that certifies people and firms for lead abatement, work designed to permanently remove lead-based paint hazards. Ordinary remodeling is not abatement under Michigan law, and the state’s own guidance lists floor replacement among the renovation work that falls under the federal rule.

The department’s own handout puts the division in one line:

“RRP projects and lead abatement activities are two separate programs that are regulated differently by EPA and the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services (MDHHS).”

That same handout, in its list of who must comply with the federal rule, names the kind of job a flooring crew does every week:

“Window, door and floor replacements.”

Put together, a flooring firm doing covered renovation work in Michigan looks to EPA for its certifications, not to the state’s abatement program. Whether a particular floor replacement is covered renovation work depends on the building and the job, and the federal rule is where that is decided; this page does not decide it for any job.

At the walkthrough on an older building, ask how old it is, which painted trim your crew will disturb to get the old floor out, and whether the person in your company who holds the certification will be on the job.

Older houses gather several of these questions into one visit, which is why the residential flooring contractor insurance page gives them room. The response of a general liability policy to a claim involving lead or other contaminants is a policy question, taken up on the general liability page.

Michigan asbestos rules when an old floor comes up

Michigan’s own asbestos program reaches flooring removal in part. The Michigan Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s Asbestos Program licenses asbestos abatement contractors, but the license attaches to friable asbestos, the material that crumbles under hand pressure, so floor tile that stays intact and nonfriable sits outside that licensing duty. The state environmental agency, which carries out the federal asbestos emission standard in Michigan, requires a thorough inspection before covered renovations and treats resilient floor covering as nonfriable material that becomes regulated if it is sanded, ground, cut or abraded or is in poor condition. That emission standard leaves out homes and other small residential buildings.

Authority: MCL 338.3103(d); MCL 338.3207(1); MCL 338.3403(2); 29 CFR 1926.1101(b); 40 CFR Part 61, Subpart M

Michigan’s asbestos rules sit with two agencies, and they ask different questions of the same tear-out. The Michigan Occupational Safety and Health Administration Asbestos Program asks who may do the work. The Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy asks what must happen before and during it.

On the first question, the licensing act ties its duty to one kind of material:

“an asbestos abatement contractor shall not engage in any activity involving the demolition, renovation, or encapsulation of friable asbestos materials without first receiving a license from the department.”

Friable is the word to hold on to. As the headline above explains, floor tile that stays intact and nonfriable sits outside that licensing duty, so the condition of the old floor, and what the removal does to it, matters from the first question on.

On the second question, the environmental agency carries out the federal emission standard in Michigan, and its fact sheet starts with an inspection:

“The Asbestos NESHAP requires that a thorough inspection be conducted for all renovations and all demolitions.”

The same fact sheet puts old resilient flooring in its own category of nonfriable material:

“Category I nonfriable asbestos-containing material (ACM): Asbestos-containing packings, gaskets, resilient floor covering …”

And it says when that material stops being treated as nonfriable and becomes regulated:

“Category I nonfriable ACM that will be or has been subjected to sanding, grinding, cutting, or abrading”

Here the removal method becomes part of the compliance picture and not only a production decision. Sanding, grinding, cutting or abrading an old resilient floor changes how the standard treats it, and so does taking up a floor that is already in poor condition. The emission standard also has an edge on the residential side, which the fact sheet states in its definition of a facility:

“excluding residential buildings having four or fewer dwelling units”

Owner practices that follow from those passages:

• On a commercial or larger residential tear-out, ask for the inspection before you price the removal, and read what it found in the floor you are replacing and the mastic under it.
• Spell the removal method out in the written proposal. If the floor comes up in worse shape than expected, stop and talk with the building owner before the method changes.
• Share the inspection results with the crew lead, because whoever holds the scraper usually sees an older layer nobody mentioned first.
• Keep the inspection report, the proposal and any change order together in the job file, so the record of what was known, and when, is in one place.

The residential exclusion is an exclusion from the emission standard, not a statement about what an old floor in a house contains. A crew working in homes still chooses how to take up a floor it knows little about, which is part of why the residential page treats older houses on their own.

The insurance side of tear-out is answered in the policies’ own terms. An asbestos claim under a general liability policy is taken up on that policy’s own page, along with how finished work is treated once the owner is back in the room. A commercial tear-out adds the contract’s insurance requirements, covered on the commercial page, and demolition of old tile raises its own version of these questions on the tile and stone page.

Workers’ compensation for a Michigan flooring employer

For the employers the Workers’ Disability Compensation Act covers, Michigan requires workers’ compensation. Each covered employer buys a policy from an insurer authorized to write the coverage in Michigan or is approved by the agency’s director to carry the risk itself. No Michigan state fund exists, so coverage comes from the private market.

Authority: MCL 418.115; MCL 418.611(1)

The statute frames the duty as a choice between methods, each subject to the director’s approval:

“Each employer under this act, subject to the approval of the director, shall secure the payment of compensation under this act by either of the following methods:”

The insurance route is the second method, and the statute describes it in these words:

“By insuring against liability with an insurer authorized to transact the business of worker's compensation insurance within this state.”

The agency that administers the Act checks that employers have done one or the other:

“The Insurance Compliance Division works to ensure that all Michigan employers subject to the Workers’ Disability Compensation Act comply with the law by securing coverage either through an insurance policy or through approved self-insurance.”

In practice, then, a Michigan flooring employer the Act covers places its workers’ compensation with an insurer authorized to write the coverage in Michigan, bought in the private market, or carries the risk itself with approval. No state fund stands behind either route.

Payroll underwriting, and how installers you pay as subcontractors affect your own policy, are coverage questions rather than Michigan ones, and the workers’ compensation page answers them.

Everything verified on this page stops at the Michigan line; a neighboring state’s rules are its own.

Michigan agencies behind these rules

The Michigan Department of Insurance and Financial Services regulates insurance in Michigan. To check an insurance agency’s license, ours included, use NIPR.com.

The rules this page describes come from several other state bodies. Each is linked to its own site, with its role as the record verified it:

• Michigan Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs: state licensing department; its Bureau of Construction Codes licenses residential builders and residential maintenance and alteration contractors
• Bureau of Construction Codes, Licensing Section (residential builders and maintenance and alteration contractors): residential builder and maintenance and alteration contractor licensing
• Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy: state environmental agency; its Air Quality Division carries out the federal asbestos emission standard
• Michigan Occupational Safety and Health Administration Asbestos Program: asbestos abatement contractor licensing, worker accreditation and project notification
• Michigan Department of Health and Human Services: state lead program (Mi Lead Safe): lead professional and lead abatement firm certification; RRP itself is EPA-administered
• Workers’ Disability Compensation Agency: workers’ compensation administration, insurance compliance and self-insurance approval

Two offices do not appear in that list. Michigan keeps no state fund for workers’ compensation, and no state office licenses commercial builders. For commercial work, the municipality where the job sits is the office to ask.

Michigan metro areas where flooring crews work

Michigan’s biggest metro areas with principal cities in the state follow, as the U.S. Census Bureau delineates them. Each card lists the Michigan counties in the metro. The license question does not change from one metro to the next; it follows the job, as the licensing section explains.

Building a Michigan flooring insurance program from these pages

Those sections place the rules. The policies that respond when something goes wrong on a flooring job are the same ones a flooring business carries in any state, and each is explained on its own page:

• General liability: injury and property damage to others, including completed work and tear-out.
• Workers’ compensation, for your crew, including how subcontracted installers are treated.
• Contractors’ tools and equipment coverage, written as inland marine, for the saws, sanders, tile cutters and stock that travel between jobs.

Which one matters most turns on the work: a carpet installation crew in finished homes and a tile and stone shop on commercial projects meet different owners and contracts, and the service pages treat each separately. When you want the pieces assembled for your Michigan work, request a quote.

What the state sets

Where we discuss it

Contractor license A state license or registration can reach this work

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General Liability

Lead-safe renovation The federal program applies in this state

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Residential Flooring Contractor Insurance

Asbestos flooring and mastic A state program reaches flooring removal

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General Liability

Workers’ compensation Bought in the open market

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Workers Compensation

A panel for Michigan in rows. Contractor license: a state license or registration can reach this work. It connects to the General Liability page. Lead-safe renovation: the federal program applies in this state. 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.