How to Verify a Cleaning Company's Credentials (Insurance, Bonding, ISSA)

Here is something most homeowners do not realize: house cleaning requires no trade license in Colorado. Anyone with a mop and a Facebook page can call themselves a professional cleaning company — which means the trust signals worth checking are the voluntary ones: insurance, bonding, employee vetting, and industry membership. Verifying them takes about ten minutes, and it is ten minutes that can save you thousands. Here is exactly what to check.

Is the company a real, registered business?

Start with the Colorado Secretary of State’s business database. A legitimate company should appear as an active LLC or corporation in good standing, with a real local address rather than just a PO box. This does not prove they clean well — but a company that has not bothered to register legally is telling you something about how it handles the rest of its obligations.

How do you verify “insured and bonded” is actually true?

Do not take the phrase on faith — ask for a Certificate of Insurance (COI). Any reputable company can have its broker email one directly to you. Look for three things: active general liability coverage (protects your home if a cleaner causes accidental damage), workers’ compensation (protects you from personal liability if a cleaner is injured in your home), and current policy dates. Bonding is the separate, often-skipped piece: a surety bond specifically covers you against theft, which general liability does not. Dashing Maids is insured and bonded, and we consider a homeowner asking for proof a green flag, not an insult.

Who is actually walking into your home?

Ask how the company hires and trains. Are cleaners background-checked employees or loosely affiliated gig workers? Is there real training or a mop and an address on day one? For comparison: we hire fewer than 1 in 100 applicants, and every new team member spends a full month in training before cleaning solo. Few companies will match that exactly, but every good one should have a confident, specific answer to the question. The employment model matters too — our comparison of an independent cleaner vs. a cleaning company explains how risk shifts depending on who the employer actually is.

What do industry credentials and reviews actually tell you?

Because Colorado does not license cleaners, voluntary industry membership is a meaningful differentiator — it signals a company invests in standards nobody forces on it. Dashing Maids is an ISSA Residential Member (ISSA is the worldwide cleaning industry association). Then let volume and recency do the talking on reviews: a long track record with consistent ratings is hard to fake. We hold a 4.9★ rating across 90+ Google reviews, and we would encourage you to read them — including how we respond when something goes wrong, which tells you more than the stars do. You can browse client feedback on our reviews page.

What is the ten-minute checklist?

• Look up the business with the Colorado Secretary of State — active and in good standing
• Request a COI showing general liability and workers’ compensation, with current dates
• Confirm bonding, specifically — it is the theft protection
• Ask about background checks, hiring standards, and training
• Check for industry membership (like ISSA) and read a range of recent reviews

We built Dashing Maids to pass every line of that checklist — a woman-owned Denver company since 2013, insured, bonded, ISSA-member, with eco-friendly cleaning practices and no contracts holding anyone here who is not happy. You can read our story on the about page, or reach out and put us through the checklist yourself — we will have the COI in your inbox before the first visit.

By the Dashing Maids editorial team · Last updated July 2026