Before you sign a contract or put down a deposit on a commercial roof, verify five things: the contractor’s state license status and class through the Florida DBPR, the business entity itself on Sunbiz, workers’ compensation coverage through the state’s Proof of Coverage portal, general liability insurance with your company named as an additional insured, and the manufacturer certifications that back a real system warranty. Each of these lives in a public database, most take a few minutes, and skipping any one of them can leave you holding liability that belongs to the contractor.
At CES Commercial Roofing, we hold both a Certified General Contractor license and a Certified Roofing Contractor license in Florida, we carry a standalone workers’ compensation policy that covers everyone on the roof, and we have installed more than 15 million square feet of commercial roofing across the state. We only work on commercial buildings, so we see how these checks play out on six- and seven-figure projects, and we see what happens to the owners who skip them. This guide runs through the same verification we would do before hiring a contractor for our own building.
What to verify before you hire
Commercial roofing carries more exposure than residential work. The dollar amounts are bigger, the insurance stakes are higher, and Florida is specific about who is legally allowed to touch a commercial roof. Here is the full checklist at a glance, with the official source for each item.
| What to verify | Where to check | What you want to see |
| Roofing license (and general contractor license if needed) | Florida DBPR license search | Active status, correct class, name matches the contract |
| Business entity and qualifying agent | Sunbiz (Division of Corporations) | Active entity, license holder tied to the company |
| Workers’ compensation | Florida Division of Workers’ Compensation Proof of Coverage portal | Active policy, correct carrier, covers the crew |
| General liability | ACORD 25 certificate plus policy endorsement | Adequate limits, your company named as additional insured |
| Manufacturer certification | The manufacturer’s own contractor locator (for example, GAF) | Certified applicator status that supports a system warranty |
| Reputation and permit history | BBB, Google, BuildZoom, county permit portal | Clean record, closed permits, consistent reviews |
Start with the Florida DBPR license
Every legitimate commercial roofing contractor in Florida is licensed through the Department of Business and Professional Regulation (DBPR). You can look up any contractor’s license by license number, individual name, or business name on the state’s licensing portal. The search returns the licensee’s name, classification, registered address, and the current status of the license.
Status is the field that matters most. “Active” means the contractor is legally authorized to pull permits and sign contracts. Anything reading “Inactive,” “Suspended,” “Revoked,” or “Delinquent” means the contractor is treated as unlicensed for the purpose of entering a construction contract, no matter how good the work looks. Florida also denies renewals when a contractor misses continuing education deadlines, so a license can lapse the day it expires. Check the status the week you plan to sign, not months ahead.
Certified vs. registered, and why it matters if you own multiple buildings
Florida issues roofing licenses in two forms, and the difference determines where a contractor can legally work.
- A Certified license (prefix CCC for roofing) is issued by the state and authorizes work in all 67 Florida counties.
- A Registered license (prefix RC for roofing) is tied to a local competency card and only authorizes work in the specific city or county that issued it.
For a single building, either can be valid as long as it covers your location. For an owner or property management firm with buildings in more than one market, a certified contractor keeps things simple. A CCC-licensed roofer can work on your property in Tampa, your property in Orlando, and anywhere else in the state under one license. A registered contractor may be limited to a single county, which means confirming coverage building by building.
Does the job need a roofing license, a general contractor license, or both?
This is where commercial verification most often goes wrong, and it is the reason a commercial job can require two licenses instead of one.
A Certified General Contractor (CGC) can build almost anything, but Florida law bars a general contractor from self-performing roofing work unless that same contractor also holds a roofing license. There is one narrow exception for shingle or wood roofing on a brand-new building the GC is constructing themselves. It does not cover flat commercial systems like TPO, PVC, or modified bitumen, and it does not cover reroofing a building the GC did not originally build. So a general contractor working on your existing commercial roof either holds a roofing license too, or subcontracts the roofing to a properly licensed roofer. There is no third option that is legal.
| License | Prefix | What it authorizes | Commercial roofing implication |
| Certified Roofing Contractor | CCC | Full roofing scope statewide, including flat commercial systems | The core license to confirm for any reroof or repair |
| Certified General Contractor | CGC | Unlimited construction scope statewide | Cannot self-perform your roof without a roofing license or a licensed roofing sub |
When a project pairs structural work with the roof, such as reframing, deck replacement beyond normal scope, or tie-ins to the building envelope, a contractor who holds both licenses removes a layer of coordination risk. At CES Commercial Roofing, we carry both the Certified General Contractor license (CGC1536224) and the Certified Roofing Contractor license (CCC1333653), so one accountable party stands behind the entire scope.
Confirm the business entity on Sunbiz
A license is issued to a person, not a company. Florida bridges that gap with a “qualifying agent,” a licensed individual who takes legal responsibility for the company’s construction work. Their license number is supposed to appear on the company’s contracts and permits.
Run the company name through Sunbiz, the state’s Division of Corporations database, and confirm two things:
- The business is an active entity in good standing, not administratively dissolved and not an unregistered fictitious name.
- The qualifying agent who holds the DBPR license actually appears in the company’s corporate filings, usually as an officer, manager, or authorized representative.
If the person holding the license is nowhere in the company’s filings, ask about it directly. The state polices an illegal practice called “license lending,” where a licensed individual rents out their number to a company they do not actually supervise. A quick cross-check between the DBPR license and the Sunbiz record rules it out.
Verify insurance the right way
Insurance is where a certificate can look complete and still leave you exposed. Two coverages matter most on a commercial roof: general liability and workers’ compensation.
General liability and why “additional insured” is the key phrase
Commercial general liability protects you, and the public, from third-party property damage and injury caused by the roofing work. Think water intrusion during a tear-off, a dropped tool, or a fire from a torch-down application. The commercial market generally expects at least $1 million per occurrence and $2 million aggregate, and larger projects often call for an umbrella policy layered on top.
Coverage shows up on a standardized ACORD 25 certificate, and the line that actually protects you is Additional Insured. Listed only as the “Certificate Holder,” you get notified if the policy is canceled and nothing more. Named as an Additional Insured, you get direct rights under the roofer’s policy, so their insurer defends you if a third party sues over the work. Ask to be named as additional insured, then ask for the policy endorsement that proves it, because the ACORD form itself is informational and does not amend the underlying policy.
The workers’ compensation check most owners get wrong
This is the single most important insurance check on a commercial roof, and the one most likely to hide a problem.
In Florida’s construction industry, any employer with even one employee has to carry workers’ compensation. If a crew member falls and the contractor has no valid coverage for that worker, the liability does not disappear. Under Florida’s statutory employer rules, it flows upstream to whoever hired the uncovered contractor, which can be the general contractor or the property owner acting as their own. On a serious fall, those claims run into the millions. Coverage also protects you legally, because it triggers the “exclusive remedy” rule that keeps an injured worker’s claim inside the workers’ comp system instead of turning into a civil lawsuit against you.
The catch is the leasing arrangement. Many contractors get their workers’ comp through a professional employer organization (PEO) or employee leasing company. A PEO policy only covers the specific workers the leasing company has formally onboarded and approved. If the roofer sends a new hire, a day laborer, or an unapproved helper onto your roof, that person can be completely uninsured under the PEO policy while the certificate in your hand still looks valid. The paperwork is accurate. The worker on your roof is uncovered.
Protect yourself with three steps:
- Verify coverage independently through the Florida Division of Workers’ Compensation Proof of Coverage portal, using the contractor’s business name or FEIN. Confirm the policy is active and note the carrier.
- Ask directly how the crew is covered, and confirm everyone who will set foot on the roof is included, not just a list of leased employees.
- Do not let a contractor onto the roof for so much as an inspection until coverage is confirmed. The state warns you can be on the hook for an injury during a preliminary inspection, before any contract is signed.
This is why we carry a standalone workers’ compensation policy at CES Commercial Roofing instead of relying on a leasing arrangement. Everyone working on one of our roofs is covered under that policy. That keeps the coverage question simple for the owner and keeps the liability where it belongs, with us.
Check the manufacturer certifications behind the warranty
State licensing is the baseline. On commercial flat roofs, the warranty that actually protects your investment comes from the material manufacturer, and only certified contractors can offer it.
Two kinds of warranty come up in commercial bids, and the gap between them is wide:
| Warranty type | What it covers | The catch |
| Material (or material and labor) warranty | Defects in the materials, sometimes limited labor | Often prorated over time, may exclude system components, can cap the payout |
| No Dollar Limit (NDL) system warranty | The entire system, membrane, flashings, insulation, edge metal, plus the full labor to repair | Only available from certified applicators, subject to a manufacturer inspection |
An NDL warranty, sometimes called a total system warranty, is the strongest protection available, because it covers materials and labor with no dollar cap for the warranty term. Manufacturers only hand these out to contractors they have vetted and certified, since they are putting their own money behind the workmanship. That is what makes manufacturer certification a reliable read on technical competence.
Verify it at the source. A logo on a truck is not proof. Manufacturers like GAF let you confirm a contractor’s certification directly on their site by name or business. If a roofer promises a 20-year NDL warranty but does not appear as certified on the manufacturer’s portal, you are looking at a major roof with no institutional backing behind that promise. CES Commercial Roofing holds 14+ manufacturer certifications across systems like GAF, Polyglass, Carlisle, and Henry, which is what lets us stand behind commercial installations with manufacturer-backed system warranties.
Check reputation and permit history
Once the license and insurance check out, a few reputation signals fill in the rest of the picture:
- Better Business Bureau: Look at the rating and any complaint history. CES Commercial Roofing holds an A+ BBB rating.
- Google reviews: Read the recent ones, and watch how the contractor responds when something goes wrong. Our reviews sit at a 4.9-star average across roughly 70 reviews.
- BuildZoom or similar third-party scoring: These rank contractors against the rest of the state’s licensed pool. We place in the top 5% of Florida licensed contractors.
- County permit history: Building departments in markets like Tampa (Hillsborough County) and Orlando (Orange County) publish permit records online. A stack of “expired” or “open” permits from past years is a red flag, because it usually means the contractor never closed out inspections and left prior owners with open permits clouding their property. A record of “closed” or “finaled” permits shows the contractor manages projects to completion.
Red flags and what to do if something does not add up
Watch for these during verification:
- The license is inactive, suspended, or the wrong class for the work.
- The name on the license or certificate does not match the entity on your contract.
- You are named only as certificate holder, not additional insured.
- Workers’ comp runs through a PEO and the contractor cannot confirm the whole crew is covered.
- The contractor pushes to start work, or inspect the roof, before you have verified coverage.
- The manufacturer’s portal does not confirm the certification behind a promised system warranty.
- The contractor wants a large deposit before permits are pulled or a Notice of Commencement is filed.
If something does not add up, stop before you sign. Ask for the one document that resolves it: an updated certificate, a policy endorsement, a corrected entity name. A legitimate commercial roofer has these ready. If a contractor gets cagey when you ask to be named additional insured or to verify workers’ comp, that is your answer.
Florida law does give property owners some cover here. Contracts signed with an unlicensed contractor are unenforceable by that contractor, and any liens they file are invalid, which is a real shield in a dispute. The state comes down hard on unlicensed roofing work, and doing it during a declared state of emergency, which Florida sees after most hurricanes, is a felony even on a first offense. None of that helps you if a worker is hurt on your roof, though, which is why the insurance checks carry as much weight as the license checks.
Get a straight answer from a licensed commercial roofer
Verification protects you, and any commercial roofer worth hiring will welcome the questions. At CES Commercial Roofing, we put our credentials on the table up front: dual licensing as a Certified General Contractor and Certified Roofing Contractor, a standalone workers’ compensation policy that covers everyone on the roof, 14+ manufacturer certifications, and more than 15 million square feet installed across Florida. We work with property owners and facility managers across Tampa, Orlando, and the rest of the state, and we are happy to walk you through exactly how we check out.
If you want a straightforward evaluation of your roof and a clear look at the credentials behind the bid, call us for a free inspection at (813) 419-1918, or read more about our commercial roofing services.
