What insured and WSIB coverage actually mean when you hire exterior work

Two words do most of the work in a quote for exterior work: insured and WSIB covered. They are not interchangeable, they protect different people, and only one of them can be verified by you, from your kitchen table, without asking anyone's permission. This is what each one actually means in Ontario, how to check it, and the two contract rules that decide what you can do after you have already signed.

Insured and WSIB covered are two separate things

Insured almost always means commercial liability insurance: a policy the business buys that responds when the crew puts a ladder through your bay window or drops a section of eavestrough on your car. WSIB covered means the business is registered with the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board, so an injury to the person doing the work is handled by the provincial workplace insurance system. One is about your property. The other is about their body.

The distinction matters because the answers can differ. A well-run one-person window cleaning business can be genuinely insured for liability and have no WSIB account at all — and, as the next section shows, may not be required to have one.

When WSIB coverage is required, and when it honestly is not

There are two separate routes into mandatory WSIB coverage, and most confusion comes from mixing them up. The first is having employees: the WSIB requires employers in the industries listed under Schedule 1 and Schedule 2 to register, and information about the business is due within 10 calendar days of the date the first worker begins employment. The second is being in construction, where the rule reaches the owner personally.

In construction, the WSIB puts it plainly: "People who own or run a business in construction, with or without employees, must have coverage with the WSIB." That covers independent operators, sole proprietors, partners and executive officers — the one-person operation included.

Outside construction, a business with no workers is generally not required to register at all. The WSIB's registration policy says those not required by law to have coverage may apply for it — independent operators, sole proprietors and executive officers included — under a product called Optional Insurance. That is the useful follow-up question for a solo operator mowing lawns or cleaning windows: not "are you WSIB covered" but "if you are not required to be, do you carry optional coverage, and if not, what happens if you are hurt here?".

Where the honest answer is "no, and I am not required to be", you have a decision to make rather than a red flag to react to. Call your own insurance broker and ask what your homeowner policy does if someone working on your property is injured. That answer is specific to your policy, and nobody writing a blog post can give it to you.

How to check a WSIB clearance in about two minutes

A clearance is the single most checkable document in this whole subject. The WSIB describes it as "a unique number issued by the WSIB to registered businesses, which shows that a business, contractor or subcontractor is registered and up-to-date with us" — up to date meaning both reporting and premium payment. It is free: "We provide clearances at no charge."

1. 1Open the quick access clearance serviceThe WSIB's clearance lookup runs without a login. You do not need a WSIB account of your own to search it.
2. 2Search by the business name, not the person's nameThe service lets you search by business name, telephone, CRA business name, address, city and/or postal code. Ask for the legal business name on the invoice — a numbered company is common and will not match a truck decal.
3. 3Read the dates, not just the presence of a numberClearances are valid for up to 90 days from the date of issue. The WSIB notes that most expire on the 20th of February, May, August and November, so a certificate can be technically expired while the account is perfectly current.
4. 4If nothing comes up, ask before concluding anythingNo result can mean an exempt home-renovation contractor, a solo non-construction business with no obligation to register, a name mismatch — or a real problem. Only the last one is a reason not to hire.
5. 5Or simply ask the contractor to email itA registered business can pull its own clearance from WSIB online services and email it directly. That takes them under a minute, and a flat refusal is itself information.

One thing worth knowing so you are not sold a worry you do not have: the WSIB's clearance rules put liability on a principal who retains a contractor for construction work, and without a valid clearance that principal "may be liable for the contractor's payment obligations to the WSIB, up to the value of the labour portion of the contract(s)". That is a genuine exposure for a builder or a property manager. It is not yours: the policy does not apply to "householders who occupy or will occupy a private residence when they (or members of their family) directly retain a contractor to perform exempt home renovation work only", and the WSIB's own clearance FAQ says a clearance certificate is not required when a contractor is hired to do home repairs or renovations by the home's resident or occupant. You check a clearance because it tells you something about who you are hiring, not because you are on the hook for their premiums.

Reading a certificate of insurance without being an underwriter

Liability insurance has no public registry, so the word insured on a website cannot be checked the way a clearance can. The only verification path is the certificate of insurance, and there are four things on it worth your attention.

1. The named insured. It has to match the business you are actually paying. If the invoice says one company and the certificate says another, you have a certificate for someone else.
2. The policy dates. A certificate is a snapshot of the day it was issued. A policy that has since lapsed for non-payment still leaves a valid-looking PDF in your inbox.
3. The limit. A number that looks large is still just a number until you compare it against the worst realistic outcome of the job — a ladder through a window is a different order of loss than water in a finished basement.
4. The broker's contact details. This is the part most people skip. Phone the broker printed on the certificate and confirm the policy is in force. Use the number on the certificate itself, not one texted to you.

For a routine seasonal service this is more diligence than most jobs need. For anything on a roof, anything where a machine comes onto the property, or anything you are prepaying for a season, it is fifteen minutes well spent. We wrote about the same trade-off between one visit and a booked season in choosing between a one-off exterior clean and a seasonal booking.

For ladder and roof work, ask about training as well as paperwork

Insurance decides who pays after something goes wrong. Training decides whether it goes wrong. Ontario's rule is that "workers on construction projects who use fall protection devices must take a working at heights training program", the training is valid for three years before a refresher is needed, and employers must keep a record of it for each worker.

Be careful about how far that rule stretches. The requirement is tied to workplaces covered by the construction regulation, and the province states plainly that workers do not have to complete approved working at heights training if their workplace is not covered by it. Whether a particular afternoon of gutter cleaning on a two-storey semi counts is not something you can settle from your driveway. So make it a question about capability rather than compliance: has the crew done working at heights training, and what are they using to get onto and along the roofline? Because the province requires employers to keep a training record for each worker, there is a concrete version of that question — ask whether they can send the record.

The height itself is the part homeowners consistently underestimate. We went through what actually changes between a bungalow and a two-storey in reach, ladders and when to stop, and the ground-level warning signs are in gutter problems you can see from the ground.

Two contract rules that apply after you have signed

Ontario's consumer rules give you more room than most homeowners realize, and they matter most in the two situations where exterior work is usually sold: someone at your door in autumn, and a seasonal contract signed on the spot.

• A contract worth more than $50 must be in writing. The province also lists what a home renovation contract has to contain, including a description of the work and materials, the total cost and payment terms, start and completion dates, the deposit, who cleans up, and which sub-trades are used and who pays them.
• If you sign in your home, you get 10 calendar days to cancel. For a contract worth $50 or more signed in your home you may cancel "for any reason and without having to pay any cancellation fees" within 10 days of receiving a written copy. Ontario lists hiring contractors, movers and snow removal services among the agreements this covers.
• An estimate in the contract caps the final price. Where an estimate is part of the contract, "the final price for all goods and services cannot be more than 10% over the original estimate unless you have agreed to new work or a new price." Agreeing means signing a change, not nodding at a driveway conversation.

When the right answer is to not hire anybody

Plenty of exterior work does not need a contract, a certificate or a clearance. Clearing a single-storey gutter run you can reach from a stable ladder on level ground, with someone else home, is a job many homeowners do perfectly well. So is a first-floor window wash, a walkway edge, and hand-pulling the weeds along a fence line. If the whole job is at arm's length from the ground and you own the ladder, the paperwork in this post is overhead you do not need.

The line worth holding is height and grade, not effort. Two storeys, a roof pitch, a ladder footing on a slope or on soft ground after rain, or a reach that has you leaning past the stiles — those are the conditions where the cost of a mistake stops being proportional to the money saved. That is the point at which the questions above earn their keep, and the point at which "insured" is worth reading properly rather than accepting as a word on a website.

The short version to keep in your phone

1. Ask for the legal business name, then look up the WSIB clearance yourself. Free, no login, about two minutes.
2. If there is no clearance, ask why. Exempt home-renovation work and a solo non-construction business are both legitimate answers.
3. Ask for the certificate of insurance, check that the named insured matches your invoice, and phone the broker on the certificate.
4. For anything above the first floor, ask whether the crew has working at heights training and what they are using to get up there.
5. Get it in writing above $50, keep your written copy, and remember the 10-day cancellation and the 10% estimate cap.
6. Ask your own broker what your homeowner policy does if a worker is injured on your property. Do this once, not per contractor.

None of this requires distrusting the person in front of you. It is the same reading you would give any agreement about your house, applied to a trade where the documents are unusually easy to check — one of them is a public lookup that costs nothing.