{
  "title": "How to Vet an Emergency Contractor in 5 Minutes",
  "description": "The five checks that catch almost every bad contractor — license, insurance, locality, bid, deposit — runnable from your phone while the water's still being mopped. Reviews aren't one of them.",
  "category": "home",
  "vertical": null,
  "tldr": "Five checks, five minutes, before any money moves: license status on your state's contractor board (complaint history included), proof of liability insurance AND workers' comp (an uninsured injury on your property can become your bill), a local address with local history, a written itemized bid — one of three you're comparing — and a small deposit paid by card or check, never cash. Google stars check none of these.",
  "who_to_call": [
    {
      "who": "Your state contractor licensing board (website, 60 seconds)",
      "when": "Before any contractor conversation gets serious — license status, class, and complaint disclosure are public",
      "not_for": null
    },
    {
      "who": "The contractor's insurance agent",
      "when": "You were handed a certificate of insurance and want it verified — call the agent on the certificate, not the number the contractor gives you",
      "not_for": null
    },
    {
      "who": "Your city permit office",
      "when": "The job needs a permit (structural, electrical, gas, most roofs) and the contractor says it doesn't — that answer is itself the red flag",
      "not_for": null
    },
    {
      "who": "Your state attorney general's consumer office",
      "when": "The vetting failed after the fact — unlicensed work, vanished deposit, bait-and-switch",
      "not_for": null
    }
  ],
  "costs": [],
  "faq": [
    {
      "q": "Why not just use Google reviews like everyone?",
      "a": "Because homeowners who've been burned say so themselves — review distrust comes up unprompted in thread after thread, and they're right: stars are bought, filtered, farmed from other cities, and wiped by renaming. Reviews measure marketing. The license board measures complaints that survived a formal process; the insurance certificate measures whether an injury bankrupts you; local history measures whether the warranty will exist in March. Five minutes of those beats five hundred stars."
    },
    {
      "q": "How do I actually check a license?",
      "a": "Every licensing state runs a public lookup — California's CSLB 'Check A License' is the model: search by name or number, see status, classification, bond, and complaint disclosure. Find your state's board via its .gov site (NASCLA's state directory at cslid.nascla.org lists every state's licensing agency). Match the name on the license to the name on the contract — borrowed licenses are a classic move."
    },
    {
      "q": "What exactly am I asking for on insurance?",
      "a": "Two documents, per the NAIC's contractor-scam guidance: proof of liability insurance (covers damage to your property) and proof of workers' compensation (covers their crew). The second one is the money question: per California's CSLB, if a worker is injured on your property and the contractor carries no coverage, YOU can be financially liable. Verify by calling the issuing agent on the certificate — certificates are trivially forged."
    },
    {
      "q": "It's 2am and water is coming in. I don't have five minutes.",
      "a": "At 2am you're buying mitigation, not construction: stop-the-damage work is small-dollar and standard-rate (our price table covers it). Pay for tonight's tarp or extraction, sign nothing about rebuild, and run the five checks in the morning before the real money conversation. No legitimate emergency requires committing to a $15,000 job before sunrise — manufactured urgency is the scam's engine, not the emergency's."
    },
    {
      "q": "The contractor says a permit isn't needed. Is that fine?",
      "a": "Sometimes true for small repairs — but 'we'll skip the permit to save you money' on structural, electrical, gas, or roofing work means you're absorbing the risk: unpermitted work surfaces at resale, voids some insurance arguments, and skips inspection. One call to your city permit office answers it. A contractor who resists that call has answered a different question."
    }
  ],
  "sources": [
    {
      "label": "CSLB: Check a license",
      "url": "https://www.cslb.ca.gov/onlineservices/checklicenseII/checklicense.aspx",
      "accessed": "2026-08-11"
    },
    {
      "label": "CSLB: Finding the right contractor (three bids, workers' comp liability)",
      "url": "https://www.cslb.ca.gov/consumers/hire_a_contractor/finding_the_right_contractor.aspx",
      "accessed": "2026-08-11"
    },
    {
      "label": "NAIC: How to avoid getting scammed by a contractor",
      "url": "https://content.naic.org/article/how-can-i-avoid-getting-scammed-contractor",
      "accessed": "2026-08-11"
    },
    {
      "label": "NASCLA: State licensing agency directory",
      "url": "https://cslid.nascla.org/",
      "accessed": "2026-08-11"
    },
    {
      "label": "Illinois Attorney General: Home repair fraud",
      "url": "https://illinoisattorneygeneral.gov/consumer-protection/home-repair/",
      "accessed": "2026-08-11"
    }
  ],
  "updated": "2026-08-11",
  "url": "https://whodoicallfor.com/home/vet-a-contractor/",
  "json_url": "https://whodoicallfor.com/home/vet-a-contractor.json",
  "recommended_call": null
}