Why these five and not the stars
People burned by contractors say the same thing, unprompted: they checked the reviews, and the reviews were useless. Of course they were — stars measure marketing spend, filtering, and how recently the company renamed itself. The five checks below measure things that can’t be bought by the review batch: state records, insurance paper verified at the source, physical presence, and payment structure. Each takes about a minute from a phone.
Check 1 — the license (60 seconds, does the most work)
Your state’s contractor board runs a free public lookup — California’s CSLB “Check A License” is the template: status, classification (is this roofer licensed for roofing?), bonding, and complaint disclosure, meaning complaints that survived an actual adjudication process rather than a review-site mood. Don’t know your state’s board? NASCLA’s directory (cslid.nascla.org) lists every state’s licensing agency.
Three things to match: the license is active, the classification fits the job, and the name on the license matches the name on your contract — operating under someone else’s license is a standard unlicensed-contractor move. No licensing in your state for this trade? Then checks 2–5 carry the weight.
Check 2 — two insurance papers, verified at the source
From the NAIC’s own anti-scam checklist: proof of liability insurance and proof of workers’ compensation. Liability covers your house when the crew drops a beam through it. Workers’ comp is the one homeowners skip and shouldn’t: in California’s CSLB’s words, if an uninsured worker is injured on your property, you could be financially liable — your homeowner’s policy and your savings become the coverage.
The verification trick: certificates are PDFs, and PDFs are editable. Call the insurance agent listed on the certificate and confirm the policy is current. Two minutes, and it filters the forgers completely.
Check 3 — local, with a past tense
A physical address in your area, a phone that connects to it, and work history you can point at — jobs, references, permits pulled locally. This is the check that specifically kills the storm-chaser model, which is allergic to past tense: crews with no local history offer warranties that leave the state when they do. One reference actually called (“did they finish on schedule? would you rehire?”) outperforms any review page.
Check 4 — a written, itemized bid — one of three
Three written bids on the same scope, per the CSLB, the NAIC, and every state AG that writes on the topic. Not because three is magic, but because comparison exposes everything: the $25,000 gutter quote dies the moment a second company bids $4,000 (we’ve run that math). Itemized means labor, materials, schedule, and payment stages — a lump sum with a today-only price is a pitch, not a bid. Written contracts are legally required above thresholds in many states (Illinois: $1,000); treat that as the floor everywhere.
Check 5 — the deposit test
The single most predictive check: how do they want to be paid? California caps home-improvement deposits at 10% or $1,000, whichever is less, and requires payments never to outrun completed work — a statutory version of plain sense that works in all fifty states. Large deposit, cash preference, or full payment upfront is the documented signature of the contractor who won’t finish (the Illinois AG lists it verbatim among fraud patterns). Check or card only — both leave records, and cards add dispute rights.
The 2am version
Emergencies compress the checklist, not delete it. Tonight you buy mitigation — tarp, extraction, board-up — small-dollar work at known rates. The five checks run tomorrow, before anyone discusses the rebuild. The only contractors harmed by a 12-hour delay on a five-figure decision are the ones the checklist exists to catch — and if the “deal expires tonight,” you’ve just run check six for free.