Texas Flooring Contractor Insurance

In Texas, workers’ compensation is an election rather than a mandate, and the election has a price: a private employer may choose whether to carry the coverage, but one that goes without and is sued by an injured employee may not defend on the employee’s own negligence, an assumed risk or a co-worker’s negligence. Around that choice, Texas issues no statewide flooring contractor license, so the city where a job sits sets the local rule; EPA certifies lead-safe renovation; and the state health department’s asbestos program reaches flooring removal in public buildings.

Both halves of that first finding sit in the Labor Code, a few lines apart. One gives the employer the choice:

“Except for public employers and as otherwise provided by law, an employer may elect to obtain workers' compensation insurance coverage.”

The other says what declining costs when an uncovered employee brings a lawsuit:

“In an action against an employer by or on behalf of an employee who is not covered by workers' compensation insurance obtained in the manner authorized by Section 406.003 to recover damages for personal injuries or death sustained by an employee in the course and scope of the employment, it is not a defense that: (1) the employee was guilty of contributory negligence; (2) the employee assumed the risk of injury or death; or (3) the injury or death was caused by the negligence of a fellow employee.”

Read either passage alone and it misleads: the election looks like a free pass, the lost defenses like a mandate. Together they describe a real decision, and the workers’ compensation section further down adds how coverage is carried, the notice a non-subscriber owes, and the public work where the choice narrows.

Coverage questions that apply to a flooring business anywhere belong to the flooring contractor insurance page and the pages beneath it. Here the subject is only what Texas adds, and it applies alike to a residential flooring crew in occupied homes, a commercial flooring operation bidding under general contractors, a carpet installation business and a tile and stone shop.

Where Texas contractor rules come from when the state issues no flooring license

No statewide contractor license or registration in Texas reaches flooring installation. The Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation’s list of regulated industries includes air conditioning and refrigeration contractors, electricians and water well drillers, and no general, building, remodeling or flooring contractor license.

Authority: Tex. Loc. Gov’t Code §§ 51.001, 51.002, 51.072(a)

The state licenses construction crafts, and laying a floor is not among them, so the licensing question an owner asks moves from the state to the city.

Having no state license to hold does not leave a Texas flooring job free of rules. Under Texas law a city may adopt the ordinances its good government and its trade and commerce call for, so long as they are consistent with state law, and cities use that room: Fort Worth requires any business that obtains a permit under its building, mechanical, plumbing or electrical codes to keep a contractor registration on file with its Development Services Department, so a flooring job there that needs a building permit needs a registered contractor. Each city where the work is done sets the rule for that job.

The City of Fort Worth Development Services Department is one office that has filled it. Its registration reaches any firm, business or individual that obtains a permit under the city’s building, mechanical, plumbing or electrical codes, with narrow exceptions for owner-occupants working on their own homestead and for banners on an owner’s commercial property; it reaches a flooring contractor on any job that needs a building permit in the city.

“Any firm, business, individual or organization obtaining a permit related to the building, mechanical, plumbing or electrical provisions of the City of Fort Worth's Codes shall have on file in the Development Services Department a valid Contractor Registration signed by an official of the business”

What sets that rule in motion is the permit rather than the trade. In that city a flooring job that needs a building permit needs a registered contractor, as the obligation sentence above spells out, and whether a particular job needs a permit is a question to put to the building department while the bid is still open.

A few routines help an owner whose crews cross from one Texas city to the next:

• Call the building department of any city that is new to you during the bid, and ask two things: what it wants from a contractor on the kind of job you are quoting, and whether that job pulls a permit.
• Log each city’s registration and the date it lapses in the office, not in a crew lead’s truck, so a general contractor’s question gets an answer the same day.
• File city registrations apart from certificates of insurance. One comes from city hall and the other from your agent, and either can hold up a start date.

Insurance paperwork runs on a separate track. Before a commercial start, a general contractor’s certificate request, with the additional insured wording that tends to come with it, is taken up on the commercial flooring contractor insurance page, and what a homeowner may want to see is on the residential page.

Texas lead rules for flooring crews: EPA for renovation, the state for abatement

In Texas the lead renovation, repair and painting (RRP) program is EPA’s to administer, so the lead-safe renovation certification a flooring firm needs for paid work that disturbs painted surfaces in older homes, childcare facilities and preschools comes from EPA.

Authority: 40 CFR Part 745; Tex. Occ. Code ch. 1955 (Lead-Based Paint Abatement)

The federal duty itself is short enough to quote whole, and it is written around who is paid and what gets disturbed rather than around any trade:

“EPA's RRP Rule requires that anyone paid to perform work that disturbs painted surfaces in homes, childcare facilities and preschools built before 1978 be certified and their employees be trained (either as a certified renovator or on-the-job by a certified renovator) in the use of lead-safe work practices that minimize occupants’ exposure to lead hazards.”

Lead abatement, as distinct from renovation, stays with the Texas Department of State Health Services. Its Environmental Lead Program certifies the individuals and firms that do lead inspections, risk assessments, hazard screens and abatement in older housing and child-occupied facilities under the Texas Environmental Lead Reduction Rules, while renovation work that disturbs paint, such as pulling painted baseboards or trim during a floor replacement, falls under the federal rule.

Paint is where a floor job meets this rule. Painted baseboards, shoe molding, door casings and trim along the walls are the surfaces a crew may pry off or cut to run a new floor, which is why the obligation sentence uses baseboards and trim as its example. Only the facts of a given job can say whether it falls under the federal rule, and this page does not decide it.

At the walkthrough, a short list of questions covers most of it:

• Ask the owner what year the house or facility was built, since the federal rule quoted above turns on it, and write the answer on the estimate.
• Find out whether the building houses a childcare facility or preschool, which the federal rule names alongside homes.
• Decide at the bid which trade pulls the painted trim and who puts it back, so everyone knows which firm is disturbing the paint.
• Confirm that the certified renovator on your firm’s paperwork is actually assigned to this job.

Occupied older homes are a subject of their own on the residential flooring contractor insurance page for that reason, and the way a general liability policy handles a claim that involves lead or other contaminants is worked through on the general liability page.

Texas asbestos rules and the resilient flooring route around the license

The Texas Department of State Health Services runs the state’s asbestos program, and it reaches flooring removal in public buildings. The Texas Asbestos Health Protection Rules apply to anyone who disturbs or removes asbestos in a public building during repair, renovation or maintenance, and state law requires a Department license for that work. Resilient floor covering, which the rules define to include sheet vinyl, resilient tile and their adhesives, has its own route: removal of intact, nonfriable material using the Resilient Floor Covering Institute’s work practices under a trained supervisor is exempt from the license and registration requirements, including removal of asbestos mastic stuck to non-asbestos flooring, though the Department says the flooring must first be sampled by a licensed inspector; flooring that is sanded, ground, chipped, drilled or sawed loses that route and must be abated under the full rules. A private residence and a small apartment building are outside the rules.

Authority: Tex. Occ. Code §§ 1954.101(a), 1954.104(b)–(c); Tex. Admin. Code tit. 25, §§ 296.1(b)(1), (c), 296.21, 296.171, 296.231(b)

Its parts are easiest to follow in the order a job meets them. Start with the building. The rules reach public buildings, and their scope section sets homes and small apartment buildings aside:

“This chapter does not apply to a single private residence or a single apartment building with no more than four dwelling units, except for a residential building subject to NESHAP”

Next comes sampling. Before any floor comes up under the rules, the Department wants the material tested:

“Also, before beginning any removal, the flooring material must be sampled by a licensed inspector to determine the presence of asbestos per TAHPR”

Then the route itself, which the headline says runs under a trained supervisor. The statute lifts the license and registration requirements for resilient floor covering taken up this way:

“The licensing and registration requirements of this chapter do not apply to an activity that involves resilient floor-covering material if the removal of the material is performed consistently with: (1) work practices published by the resilient floor-covering industry; or (2) other methods determined by the commissioner to provide public health protection from asbestos exposure.”

Last, the edge of the route, which the rules draw tightly:

“The removal activity allowed under this exemption is strictly limited to intact resilient floor-covering material that is nonfriable; remains intact; and has not been sanded, ground, mechanically chipped, drilled, abraded, cut, or sawed.”

The verbs in that last passage are the ones to circle. A removal method that sands, grinds, chips, drills, abrades, cuts or saws the material takes the job off the exempt route and into the full rules, and the headline above says the state requires a Department license for that work. An owner whose firm holds no such license therefore has one decision that keeps a public-building tear-out on the right side of the line: the method, chosen and written down before the price is.

Habits that fit this rule:

• On a public building, get the licensed inspector’s sampling results before you price the removal, and read what they found under the floor you are replacing.
• Name the removal method and the trained person supervising it in the proposal.
• If a second layer turns up under the first, stop and have it sampled before anyone changes the method.

The residence exclusion speaks only to the state rules. It is no finding about what an old floor in a house contains, and a residential crew still chooses how to take up flooring it knows little about, which the residential page treats as its own subject.

Tear-out is a policy question too. Asbestos claims under a general liability policy, and the treatment of finished work once the owner is using the room again, are covered on the general liability page; the insurance terms a general contractor writes into a commercial tear-out are on the commercial page; and tile demolition gets its own treatment on the tile and stone page.

Texas workers’ compensation: electing coverage or going without it

Texas does not make workers’ compensation compulsory for private employers. The Labor Code lets an employer elect whether to carry it, through a licensed insurance company or through self-insurance, and an employer that goes without, which the Texas Department of Insurance calls a non-subscriber, must tell the state’s workers’ compensation division and its own employees. The trade-off is written into the statute: when an employee without coverage sues over a work injury, the employer may not defend on the employee’s own negligence, an assumed risk or a co-worker’s negligence. On public work the choice narrows, because a governmental entity that lets a building or construction contract must require the contractor, and each subcontractor on the project, to certify coverage for its employees. A domestic mutual insurance company created by Texas law writes the coverage and serves as the insurer of last resort; it is a carrier, so it is described here by what it does rather than by name.

Authority: Tex. Lab. Code §§ 406.002(a), 406.003, 406.004(a), 406.033(a), (d), 406.096(a)–(b); Tex. Ins. Code §§ 2054.003(a), (c), 2054.151

An employer that elects coverage has two ways to carry it, and the statute names both:

“An employer may obtain workers' compensation insurance coverage through a licensed insurance company or through self-insurance as provided by this subtitle.”

The insurance route runs through licensed insurance companies, the statute-created insurer the headline describes among them; because it is a carrier, this page refers to it by function and not by name.

An employer that declines has a name in the state’s vocabulary, and the headline above sets out the notice it owes the division and its employees:

“Employers that choose not to provide Texas workers’ compensation coverage to their employees are known as non-subscribers.”

The defenses a non-subscriber gives up are quoted in the introduction. One more line from the same section keeps that picture accurate, because the injured employee still carries a burden:

“In an action described by Subsection (a), the plaintiff must prove negligence of the employer or of an agent or servant of the employer acting within the general scope of the agent's or servant's employment.”

So declining coverage does not make an employer answerable for every injury, but it means meeting an injured employee’s lawsuit without the three defenses the statute takes away.

Public work narrows the choice for everyone on the project, subcontractors included:

“A governmental entity that enters into a building or construction contract shall require the contractor to certify in writing that the contractor provides workers' compensation insurance coverage for each employee of the contractor employed on the public project.”

“Each subcontractor on the public project shall provide such a certificate relating to coverage of the subcontractor's employees to the general contractor, who shall provide the subcontractor's certificate to the governmental entity.”

For a flooring subcontractor bidding a building or construction contract that a governmental entity lets, that means a certificate of coverage travels up to the general contractor and on to the entity, and a firm without coverage has nothing to certify.

Whether to elect coverage is a business decision with an insurance consequence on both sides. The payroll, subcontracted-installer and certificate questions behind it belong to the policy rather than to Texas, so they are set out on the workers’ compensation page.

This page’s findings end at the state line. A crew that crosses into a neighboring state meets that state’s own rules.

Texas offices behind the rules on this page

The Texas Department of Insurance is the state’s insurance regulator, and its workers’ compensation division administers the system this page’s regime section describes. To confirm that an insurance agency, ours among them, is licensed, use NIPR.com.

Each remaining body links to its own site below, with the role the record verified for it:

• Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation: statewide occupational licensing, including air conditioning and refrigeration contractors and electricians; no general, building or flooring contractor license
• Texas Department of State Health Services: state health agency that runs the asbestos and environmental lead programs a flooring contractor meets
• Texas Department of State Health Services, Asbestos Program: asbestos licensing, notification and the Texas Asbestos Health Protection Rules for public buildings
• Texas Department of State Health Services, Environmental Lead Program: state lead program: certification for lead inspection, risk assessment and abatement; RRP itself is EPA-administered
• Texas Department of Insurance, Division of Workers’ Compensation: workers’ compensation administration, including non-subscriber notices and certified self-insurance

In Texas the asbestos and lead programs both sit with the state health agency, so a flooring owner deals with one department on two separate programs. Absent on purpose are a statewide flooring license board and a state fund; the office an owner hears from most in an ordinary week is the building department of whichever city the job is in.

Texas metro areas where flooring jobs meet city rules

The largest Texas metropolitan areas, all with principal cities in the state, appear with their counties as delineated by the U.S. Census Bureau. Within every one, the licensing finding above holds: the cities set the rule a flooring job meets.

Texas coverage pages for the work these rules describe

Where the rules sit is one question; which policies answer for the work is another, and each of those has its own page:

• For claims by others over injury, property damage, finished floors and tear-out, see general liability.
• For your own crew, and the elect-or-decline decision this page opened with, see workers’ compensation.
• For tools, equipment and material moving between jobs, see inland marine coverage for contractors’ tools and equipment.

A carpet installation shop and a tile and stone setter bid different Texas jobs and meet different tear-outs, and the service pages take each on its own terms. A quote request is the next step once you want those pieces assembled for your Texas work.

What the state sets

Where we discuss it

Contractor license No statewide license reaches 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 Not compulsory for every employer

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Workers Compensation

A panel for Texas in rows. Contractor license: no statewide license reaches 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: not compulsory for every employer. 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.