Your license class is one cage. Your policy classification is another.

General liability is the foundation, and completed operations is the part carrying the weight, because an HVAC failure frequently surfaces a season after the work rather than the same week. Workers compensation covers employee injury, and matters more than owners expect once rooftop work, attics, crawl spaces and heavy equipment are involved. Tools and equipment, written as inland marine, covers recovery machines, gauges, vacuum pumps, brazing kits and meters, which general liability does not. Commercial auto covers service vans and trucks. A commercial umbrella adds limits over liability and auto and is commonly required by contract.

Two more deserve a specific conversation on this trade. Contractors pollution liability, because refrigerant release and in some forms carbon monoxide can engage a pollution exclusion. And, for anyone doing load calculations, system design or design build work, a professional form, since general liability answers for damage rather than for a design that did not perform. The right question is not which policy to buy but whether the class on the policy matches the work you actually do.

The Arkansas Department of Labor and Licensing, through its HVAC/R Licensing Board, established under Arkansas Code section 17-33-101 and following. That is worth stating plainly because it is a different agency from the one that licenses plumbers. Arkansas licenses plumbing through the Department of Health, and it licenses heating, ventilation, air conditioning and refrigeration through the Department of Labor and Licensing. A mechanical contractor doing both answers to two separate state agencies, and if the business contracts for work above the contractor licensing threshold it answers to the Arkansas Contractors Licensing Board as well, which is a third.

Two further points are worth knowing. The department reports that it has no reciprocal licensing agreements with any other state board for HVAC/R, so a license held elsewhere does not transfer. And the department also supervises inspection for compliance with the State Mechanical and Fuel Gas Codes. Requirements change, so confirm your position directly with the HVAC/R Licensing Board rather than relying on any summary.

Possibly, and they are different things answering different questions. The HVAC/R license from the Department of Labor and Licensing establishes your authority to perform HVACR work. A contractor license from the Arkansas Contractors Licensing Board, under a separate chapter of the code, governs your right to contract for work above the statutory threshold. Holding one does not give you the other.

The consequence falls on the contractor side. Arkansas contractor licensing law provides that no action may be brought at law or in equity to enforce a contract entered into in violation of that chapter, which means a properly licensed HVAC business can perform a large job correctly and then be unable to sue for payment because it contracted without the contractor license the job required. We are not publishing threshold figures, because available sources disagree about them and this is not a number worth guessing at. Confirm what applies to the size of work you take directly with the Contractors Licensing Board, and take contract questions to construction counsel rather than to a web page.

More than most technicians realize, and less than many companies assume. Arkansas Code section 17-33-303 requires every individual who designs, installs, constructs, maintains, services, repairs, alters or modifies any HVACR system, or any portion of an HVACR system, to hold one of the statutory license classes. Note the phrase any portion, because it is broader than people expect.

The classes divide the trade by scope. One class permits HVACR work without limitation. Another is limited by the cooling capacity and heating input of the unit. A service class permits service and repair but expressly prohibits installing original equipment or replacing existing equipment. A sheet metal class permits ductwork but expressly prohibits the sale, installation and service of HVACR equipment and systems. A refrigeration class permits refrigeration work but expressly prohibits heating and air conditioning equipment used for human comfort. The statute has also been amended, including provisions repealing the service class with existing holders moved to another class. We are deliberately not publishing tonnage, BTU or horsepower figures on this page because the codified text and current secondary summaries disagree on them. Confirm your class limits with the HVAC/R Licensing Board directly.

You create two separate problems at once, and only one of them is a licensing problem. The first is regulatory. Performing work your class does not authorize is a matter for the licensing board, and if the job also required a contractor license you did not hold, the contract may be unenforceable, which means you may be unable to sue for payment. The second problem is insurance, and it is the one nobody raises. Your policy is written on declared operations, meaning the classes of work you told the carrier you perform. Work outside those declared operations can fall outside coverage regardless of what your license says.

Put the two together and the picture is uncomfortable. Your license class limits what you may lawfully do. Your policy classification limits what you are covered for. They are two different limits, set by two different bodies, for two different reasons, and they do not automatically match. A duct company that swapped a unit while it was on site has stepped outside both at the same time. Review them against each other rather than assuming that being licensed means being covered.

It is the most serious exposure on the trade, and coverage for it is not something to assume. Any work involving combustion, meaning furnaces, flues, venting, gas appliances and heat exchangers, creates the possibility of carbon monoxide entering an occupied space. Three features make it uniquely serious among contractor exposures. It is bodily injury rather than property damage, so the values involved are of a different order. It can affect several people in one household or building at once, which turns a single job into multiple claimants. And it can surface a full heating season after the work, when a system that was fine in April is fired up in November, which makes completed operations coverage essential rather than optional.

There is a coverage wrinkle worth raising specifically with your agent. Some forms treat carbon monoxide as a pollutant, which can engage the pollution exclusion and remove what would otherwise be a covered bodily injury claim. Wording varies considerably between carriers. Ask directly how your policy treats carbon monoxide, and whether contractors pollution liability is appropriate alongside it.

Often not under a standard general liability policy, because refrigerant can fall within a pollution exclusion in the same way other released substances do. There are two separate issues to keep apart. The first is regulatory. Federal rules under Section 608 of the Clean Air Act require certification to handle refrigerants and govern recovery, recycling and venting, and that is a compliance obligation rather than an insurance one, though a violation can generate exposure that your general liability policy will not answer for.

The second is coverage. A significant release, whether from a damaged line set, a failed recovery operation or an incident during equipment replacement, can produce clean up costs and third party claims that a pollution exclusion may bar. Contractors pollution liability is the coverage that addresses it, either as an endorsement or as a separate policy. Whether it belongs on your program depends on the size of the systems you work on, since a residential split system and a commercial rack are very different propositions. Confirm certification requirements with the relevant federal guidance and coverage questions with your agent.

Not automatically. Brazing line sets, soldering and any open flame work near framing, insulation or finished surfaces is hot work, and hot work is frequently excluded on contractor forms or made subject to conditions. Where it is covered, carriers commonly require a written permit process, a fire watch maintained for a stated period after the flame goes out, extinguishers within a set distance, and restrictions on performing hot work late in the day. Those conditions get examined closely after a fire, and the last job of the day is where they are most often missed.

HVAC has a particular version of the problem because brazing frequently happens in attics, crawl spaces and wall cavities, which are exactly the places where a smouldering start is not noticed until much later. Three practical steps. Confirm in writing whether hot work is covered on your policy at all. If it is, get the conditions in plain language and make sure crews follow them rather than merely know about them. And if you have moved substantially to press or mechanical fittings, tell your agent, because reducing open flame work can change your terms.

The damage it causes to other property may be covered, the cost of putting your own work right generally is not, and the distinction matters more on HVAC than most trades because failures here are often expensive in both directions. General liability forms commonly exclude damage to your own work arising out of that work, so returning to correct a faulty installation, replace a component you installed wrongly or redo a line set is ordinarily your cost. Resulting damage to other property can be covered, so water damage from a condensate line or a coil, damage from a refrigerant leak, or fire damage following a fault may fall within the policy subject to the form.

There is a third category worth separating out. If a system was installed correctly but was the wrong size or specification for the building, that is a design and performance question rather than a physical damage question, and general liability is generally not the policy that answers it. Contractors performing load calculations, system design or design build work should discuss a professional form.

It is a bigger share of HVAC claims than the trade expects, and it behaves like a plumbing claim rather than a mechanical one. A blocked condensate drain, a failed pan, a coil leak or a line set problem in a ceiling or attic can put water through finished space, and the resulting damage frequently exceeds the value of the equipment several times over.

What follows is worth understanding. The building owner will usually claim on their own property policy and be paid, and their insurer will then exercise subrogation against whoever it believes caused the loss, which on a water claim following a service visit is often the HVAC contractor. That demand is for what the carrier paid rather than for what the customer thinks is fair, and the customer has no say in whether it is pursued because they have already been made whole. Two consequences. Completed operations matters, since these claims arrive late. And how your particular form handles water damage is worth confirming rather than assuming, because wording varies.

Start the commercial quote form or call (479) 286-1066. HVAC is generally a well received class, but the detail decides the terms and some of the detail is specific to this trade.

Useful to have: your legal entity and years in business, your HVAC/R license class and any contractor license, an honest split between residential and commercial work and between service, replacement and new construction installation, whether you work on commercial refrigeration or rack systems, whether you perform any combustion or gas appliance work, whether you do brazing or other hot work and what your permit and fire watch practice is, whether you perform load calculations or system design, whether you do any ductwork or sheet metal fabrication, estimated annual payroll and revenue, employee count and use of subcontractors, whether technicians hold current federal refrigerant certification, a vehicle schedule with drivers, a tools and equipment list with values including recovery machines and gauges, and loss runs for the last several years. If a general contractor or property owner has given you insurance requirements, send that document too.