Research study
What insurance a garage door company must carry, state by state
"Make sure they’re insured" means little without a number. Here are the real bond and liability figures in ten states, quoted from each state.
Written by HyreGarage Research Desk Primary-source research and statute analysis
Audited by HyreGarage Research Desk Citation, statute verification and retrieval-date audit
The finding
State rules for garage door companies range from nothing to a $1,000,000 liability policy. Texas, Colorado and North Carolina (below its $40,000 project threshold) require no state bond or insurance.
Tennessee requires $100,000 general liability plus a $10,000 bond for a Home Improvement contractor. California requires a $25,000 bond but no separate liability insurance, per the Contractors State License Board (CSLB).
What we found
The range runs from zero to seven figures, and both ends are legal.
Texas, Colorado and North Carolina (below its $40,000 project threshold) set no state bond or insurance rule for a garage door installer.
Tennessee requires $100,000 general liability plus a $10,000 bond for a Home Improvement contractor, rising to $1,000,000 for its largest tier.
California is the surprise. The CSLB bond page states: "The bond must be in the amount of $25,000." But the same page does not require general liability insurance as a separate condition of the license.
Florida and Washington both name a dollar figure. Florida’s specialty contractor category (Fla. Admin. Code R. 61G4-15.003) sets $100,000 liability and $25,000 property damage. Washington’s registration requires "$200,000 in public liability and $50,000 property damage, or $250,000 combined single limit," on top of its bond.
Nevada and Arizona set the bond by judgment or by tier, not one fixed figure. Nevada’s board sets it "from $1,000 to $500,000" based on the applicant. Arizona’s statute runs from $1,000 to $100,000 by license class.
What does this page claim, and what does it not?
These are the legal minimums in each state. They are not advice on how much coverage is enough.
A $25,000 bond or a $100,000 liability policy is a floor set by the state. It is not a judgment of what would protect you in a real loss. A company can meet every state minimum and still be underinsured for your job.
In Texas, Colorado and most of North Carolina, there is no state bond or insurance rule. Your only protection is what the company chooses to carry and show you. Ask for the certificate of insurance, because no state form guarantees one exists.
We could not reach the Secretary of State’s site. What we report is what independent industry sources consistently say the Board’s own chart shows. We mark it clearly as not confirmed by HyreGarage.
California’s bond rose from $15,000 to $25,000 in 2023 by law (SB 607). Check the state’s current page before you rely on any figure here.
A state minimum tells you what the license requires. It does not tell you whether a company’s policy is current, enough, or even real. Ask for the certificate directly.
What each state requires, quoted from the source
Sorted A to Z. Read the full detail column: one dollar figure often hides an important condition.
| State | Requirement | Detail |
|---|---|---|
| Arizona | $1,000-$7,500 bond (specialty residential) | Arizona Revised Statutes § 32-1152: specialty residential bonds are "not more than $7,500 and not less than $1,000". General residential runs $5,000 to $15,000. General commercial runs $5,000 to $100,000, by yearly volume. Residential contractors also pay into the Residential Recovery Fund under § 32-1126(G). |
| California | $25,000 bond, no separate GL mandate | CSLB’s bond page: "The bond must be in the amount of $25,000," effective January 1, 2023 under SB 607 (up from $15,000). The same page does not require general liability insurance to hold a license. California relies on the bond, not a liability policy. |
| Colorado | None (state level) | Colorado issues no statewide general or specialty contractor license. The Division of Professions and Occupations licenses only electricians and plumbers. Other construction, including garage door work, is left to cities and counties, if they regulate it at all. |
| Florida | $100,000/$25,000 (specialty) | Florida Administrative Code Rule 61G4-15.003 sets specialty contractors, the category for garage and overhead door installers, at $100,000 public liability and $25,000 property damage. General and Building Contractors need $300,000/$50,000. DBPR’s own site returned HTTP 403, so we read the rule text on a legal-database mirror. |
| Georgia * | $300,000-$500,000 GL (unconfirmed) | The Secretary of State’s site blocked every automated request on our retrieval date. Industry sources consistently say the Board’s own chart requires $300,000 general liability for Residential-Basic contractors and $500,000 for Residential-Light Commercial and General Contractor tiers, with the Board as certificate holder. Not confirmed by us. |
| Nevada | $1,000-$500,000 bond (discretionary) | The Nevada State Contractors Board’s bond page: the bond "can vary in amount from $1,000 to $500,000." The Board weighs "the type of license requested, monetary limit granted, past, present or future financial responsibility, experience, and character of the applicant." That page states no separate liability insurance rule. |
| North Carolina | None (below $40,000) | The NC Licensing Board for General Contractors requires a license only for projects of $40,000 or more, set by statute. A garage door job almost never reaches that. So for most of this work there is no state license, and no state bond or insurance rule. |
| Tennessee | $100,000 GL + $10,000 bond (Home Improvement) | Tennessee Board for Licensing Contractors insurance guidance (PDF): Home Improvement contractors, the category for most $3,000-$25,000 home jobs, need general liability of "not less than one hundred thousand dollars ($100,000)" plus a $10,000 bond or irrevocable letter of credit. General Contractor minimums rise to $1,000,000 for the largest tier. |
| Texas | None | Texas has no state license for construction contracting at all. We checked the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation program list for our installer licensing page. No license means no state bond or insurance figure. |
| Washington | $30,000/$15,000 bond + $200,000/$50,000 GL | Washington L&I registration, also checked for our installer licensing page: "$30,000 for general contractors. $15,000 for specialty contractors" in bonding, plus "$200,000 in public liability and $50,000 property damage, or $250,000 combined single limit." |
* Georgia has an asterisk because HyreGarage could not confirm this figure. The Secretary of State’s site returned a Cloudflare challenge to every request on our retrieval date. Every other row was checked directly against the state authority’s own published page, statute or rule.
Why do the rules differ so much from state to state?
Because states disagree about whether to license construction trades at all. The differences are not random.
Texas, Colorado and North Carolina say, in each case, that most small home construction work does not need state oversight. Texas has no construction contracting license of any kind. Colorado leaves general contracting to cities and counties.
North Carolina only licenses projects of $40,000 or more, which ordinary garage door work almost never reaches. In all three, "insured" is a private matter between you and the company.
California, Nevada and Arizona license the trade (see our installer licensing page) and require a bond. A bond pays out against the company’s own license. That is different from a liability insurance policy, which pays out on a specific claim.
California’s bond-only approach is the clearest case. The state protects you against a badly run company breaking licensing rules. It does not protect you against an ordinary accident on your job.
Florida, Washington and Tennessee require both a bond or registration AND a set liability insurance minimum. Tennessee goes furthest. It scales the dollar figure to the contractor’s monetary limit and requires the Board itself to be named as certificate holder. Most states build no such checkable step into licensing.
HyreGarage analysis: no approach is "more protective" in every way. A bond-only state can still have an underinsured contractor cause an uninsured loss. A state with no license can still have a careful, well-insured company.
The state figure only tells you the legal floor, not how the company actually works. That is why you should ask for the certificate of insurance in all ten states.
Terms used on this page
- Surety bond
- A three-party agreement (contractor, bonding company, state) that pays a claim against a licensing violation, up to the bond amount. It protects against a company’s misconduct or going broke, not against an ordinary accident.
- General liability (GL) insurance
- A policy that pays if the contractor’s work injures someone or damages someone else’s property. This is what most homeowners mean by "are they insured."
- Certificate of insurance
- A document from an insurer confirming a policy is active, with its limits and end date. Ask any contractor for one. A state license number does not by itself confirm current coverage.
- Monetary limit
- The largest contract value a license allows a contractor to take on. Several states, notably Tennessee and Arizona, use it to scale the required bond or insurance amount.
- Certificate holder
- The party named on an insurance certificate who must be told if the policy is canceled. Tennessee requires the Board itself to be listed, so the regulator sees lapses directly. That is unusual among the states here.
What should you ask before you sign?
Five minutes before you sign a contract.
It tells you the legal floor: zero in three states, a set dollar figure in the other seven.
A license shows the company met the rule at some point. A certificate of insurance with a current end date shows coverage exists today.
Garage door work in Texas, Colorado and most of North Carolina carries no state rule at all. So the certificate is entirely up to the company, and entirely worth asking for.
A state minimum is a floor for licensing, not a cap on what your project might need. A large commercial installation may call for coverage well above the state figure. Our quote-check tool lists what else to confirm in a quote.
What we could not find, and so did not write
A confirmed figure for Georgia from the source. The Secretary of State’s site returned a Cloudflare "Just a moment" challenge to every request on our retrieval date. Our installer licensing page hit the same block.
We report what independent industry sources consistently say the Board’s comparison chart shows, flagged as not confirmed, rather than drop Georgia or call the figure verified.
Whether Georgia, or any state here, licenses garage door installation as its own trade. This page reports the insurance rules for the general contractor tier where a garage door business would likely fall. It does not confirm a garage-door-specific license in every state. That question belongs to our installer licensing research.
City or county bond and insurance rules. Several states here, Colorado above all, leave real regulation to local governments. This page reports state rules only. Your city may have its own bond or permit-insurance rule that is not captured here.
Whether any company actually carries the required coverage. A legal minimum is not proof that a company complies. To check a contractor’s current coverage, ask that contractor for a certificate of insurance. See also how to choose a garage door company.
Questions
Does California require garage door contractors to carry liability insurance?
Which states require no insurance or bond for garage door installers?
How much liability insurance does a Florida garage door contractor need?
How much insurance must a Tennessee garage door contractor carry?
Is a bond the same as insurance?
How do I check if a garage door company is actually insured?
Which state has the highest insurance rule for garage door contractors?
Written and audited by
HyreGarage Research Desk
Primary-source research, data analysis and fact checking
We are not a garage door company. We read the agency file, the code record, the standards document or the public register ourselves, compute the figure from it, and publish it with the source and the date we retrieved it.
Where a number cannot be traced to a primary source, we publish the shorter page and say what we could not verify. Our own company records cover ten states; nothing national is ever derived from them.
- 10
- states our own company records cover — and the limit of any claim made from them
- 3,901
- garage door companies in the store
- 457
- license records verified against a state board
- 0
- national claims made from a ten-state store
How this desk works
- Primary sources only. Injury counts come from CPSC. Housing counts come from the Census file, not from a summary of it. Code history comes from the building commission that adopted the code. We do not cite an article that cites a source; we retrieve the source and do the arithmetic ourselves.
- Every figure carries its retrieval date. Registers change, datasets are revised and codes are amended. A number without the date it was read cannot be checked, so every study states one.
- Fact, calculation and analysis are labeled apart. A quote is a quote, a HyreGarage computation says so, and an interpretation says “HyreGarage analysis”. Presenting our reading of a dataset as something the agency stated would be the easiest way to lose the only thing this desk is for.
- Limitations go above the fold. If a figure is an upper bound, a bracket, or an association rather than a cause, that is said before the figure is quoted rather than in a footnote underneath it.
- No DIY instructions for spring, cable or track work. Those components hold enough stored energy to cause serious injury, and CPSC records the consequences. We describe what has failed and what a competent repair involves; we do not tell you how to do it.
Data as of State contractor board bond and insurance records, retrieved 2026-09-06. Authorship on this site is organizational: the analysis belongs to the desk rather than to a named individual, and we do not publish credentials we do not hold. Our editorial policy sets out how we source, date and correct what we publish.
Sources & retrieval dates
Getting quotes for garage door work?
Ask every company for a current certificate of insurance before you sign. A state license number alone does not confirm active coverage.
HyreGarage is not a garage door company, an insurer or a licensing authority, and does not perform, supervise or warrant garage door work. This page reports published state bonding and insurance rules. It is not legal advice. Confirm your state’s or city’s current requirement with the issuing authority directly.