Who Actually Shows Up at Your Door? Licensing, Insurance, and Background Checks Explained
Every company in this business says the same three words. Licensed. Insured. Background-checked.
We say them too — they're on our homepage. The problem is that almost nobody explains what they mean, which makes them useless to you as a way of telling one company from another.
So here is the plain version, including how to check ours.
"Licensed" in Nevada means two things, and neither is a skill certification
Nevada requires a state business license through the Secretary of State for essentially anyone doing business in the state. It's renewed annually and it has a number you can look up.
On top of that, the city or county requires a local business license — City of Henderson, City of Las Vegas, or Clark County, depending on where the business operates.
Here's what matters: neither license means anyone tested whether the company knows how to move a piano or safely reconfigure a room for a walker. There is no state license for cleanout work or move management the way there is for a contractor or a nurse.
What licensing does tell you is that the business is registered, traceable, paying taxes, and can be held accountable by an actual government body. A guy with a truck and a Facebook page has none of that. If something goes wrong — he damages a wall, he doesn't come back, something disappears — you have no recourse and often no legal name to put on a complaint.
How to verify: search the business name on the Nevada Secretary of State's business search. You should find an active entity with a current license. Ask the company for its license number and check that it matches. A company that won't give you the number is telling you something.
"Insured" is the one that actually protects your money
General liability insurance covers damage the company does to your property and injuries to people who aren't employees. If a crew gouges a wall carrying a dresser through a hallway, or drops a box through a glass tabletop, this is what pays for it.
Workers' compensation is the one families never think about and the one that can genuinely hurt you. Nevada requires it for employees. If a worker is injured in your mother's house and the company doesn't carry it, the claim can land on the homeowner's policy — or on the homeowner. This is the single biggest financial risk in hiring an unlicensed crew, and almost nobody asks about it.
How to verify: ask for a certificate of insurance. Not a photo of a card — the actual certificate, which names the carrier, the policy number, the coverage limits, and the expiration date. Any legitimate company can produce one in a day, and many will have the insurer send it to you directly, which is better because it can't be edited.
"Background-checked" needs a follow-up question
The words alone mean almost nothing, because they don't say who was checked or what was checked.
Ask: is every person who enters the home checked, or only the owner? Does it cover criminal history at the county and state level? Does it include a sex offender registry search? When were they last run — at hire, or periodically since?
And the one that matters most: will the same people who were checked be the ones who show up? A company that subcontracts to day labor for the heavy work may be telling the truth about its own staff while sending people nobody has vetted.
The conversation nobody has out loud
You are letting strangers handle everything your parent owns, and some of what they'll find is valuable.
Ask directly how the company handles it. Ours works like this: anything that looks like cash, jewelry, documents, keys, medals, or medication gets set aside in a clearly marked place and handed to the family at the end of the day — never disposed of, never bagged with the rest. If we find something that looks like it matters and you're not there, we photograph it and text you before anything happens to it.
It happens more than you'd think. Cash in coat pockets, savings bonds in a dresser, a wedding ring in a coffee can. A company that hasn't thought about this in advance has no procedure for it.
Before the job starts, take the valuables out yourself if you can. Not because you shouldn't trust the crew, but because it's the simplest way to remove the question entirely.
Five questions to ask any company — including us
- What's your Nevada business license number, and what city or county license do you hold?
- Can you have your insurer send me a certificate of insurance directly?
- Do you carry workers' compensation for everyone who will be in the house?
- Is every person on the crew an employee, or do you subcontract? Are subcontractors background-checked?
- What's your written procedure for valuables found during the job?
If a company gets defensive at any of these, that's your answer. A legitimate operator has heard all five before and has the paperwork sitting in a folder.
Ours, for the record
True Task is licensed in Nevada, carries general liability and workers' compensation, and background-checks everyone who enters a client's home. We'll hand you the documentation at the walk-through without being asked, and we'd rather you check it than take our word for it.
Call (702) 439-2352 or book a free walk-through. Henderson, Las Vegas and Boulder City.