The state’s minimum will not get you a contract.
Florida sets a licensing requirement for security agencies, and it is lower than almost every client you want to work for will accept. That gap is the thing worth understanding before you file, because agencies routinely buy to the state’s number, get licensed, and then discover that the property manager, the HOA, or the general contractor they were counting on will not let them on site.
Both numbers matter. One gets you licensed. The other gets you paid.
What the state requires to license a Class B agency
Florida regulates private security through the Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, and a Class B security agency license requires proof of commercial general liability coverage filed with the department, along with a surety bond.
The statutory liability minimum is a combined single limit covering death, bodily injury, property damage, and personal injury, and it has to extend to your employees while acting in the course of their employment. That last clause is not decorative. A policy that covers the agency but not the guards performing the work does not satisfy the requirement, and it is the kind of thing that gets caught at filing rather than at binding.
The surety bond is separate from the liability policy and is not insurance in the sense most people mean. It protects the public rather than you, and if a claim is paid against it, the surety comes back to you for reimbursement. It is a credit product, underwritten on your financials and personal credit, which is why agencies with thin balance sheets sometimes find the bond harder to obtain than the liability.
We write both the liability and the surety bond, and we prepare the certificate with the coverage information the department requires so that it is correct when you submit it. A filing rejected because the policy does not extend to employees in the course of employment costs weeks, and it is entirely avoidable.
What your clients will actually require
This is where most new agencies are caught out.
Commercial clients, property managers, associations, hospitals, retail centers, and general contractors set their own insurance requirements through contract, and those requirements are consistently higher than the state’s floor. Most will want liability limits at a million or more per occurrence, with a matching or higher aggregate. Many require the client be named as an additional insured. Many require the coverage be primary and noncontributory, and that you waive subrogation against them.
Each of those is a real transfer of risk onto your policy, and each requires an endorsement that has to be on the policy rather than typed onto a certificate. A certificate promising coverage the policy does not contain protects nobody, and the agency holding it is the one exposed.
Before you bid on an account, read the insurance exhibit in the contract. If you send it to us with your declarations page, we will tell you whether your current policy can do what you are about to promise.
The other reality of this business is how often you need a certificate, and how little notice you get. A new venue, a one-night event, a property manager who wants proof before the shift starts Friday evening. Our clients handle this themselves through our service center: once the account is set up, you can add a new certificate holder and issue the certificate at any hour, without calling our office or waiting for it to open. For an agency picking up posts and venues through the year, that removes us from the critical path entirely, and it is often the difference between taking the job and losing it to whoever produced the paperwork faster.
That covers a standard certificate showing the coverage you already carry. When a client asks for something beyond that, an additional insured endorsement, primary and noncontributory wording, a waiver of subrogation, a higher limit, or any special language in the description of operations, it comes through us, because those are changes to the policy rather than to the certificate. That is the same distinction as above, and it is why a contract exhibit is worth reading before you sign rather than when the certificate request arrives.
Assault and battery is the coverage that decides whether you are really insured
If you take one thing from this page, take this.
Standard commercial general liability forms exclude assault and battery. That exclusion is not a technicality for a security agency, it is an exclusion of the work. Your guards exist to intervene. A use-of-force incident, a detention that goes wrong, an altercation in a parking lot, a claim that a guard was excessive or that the agency failed to intervene at all: those are the claims this industry produces, and a general liability policy without assault and battery coverage will not respond to them.
Coverage is available, and it varies enormously. It can be included, added by endorsement, sublimited well below your general liability limit, or written with its own separate aggregate. Some forms cover the defense of an assault and battery claim while excluding the indemnity. Some exclude claims arising from firearms entirely.
Two questions answer most of it. Is assault and battery covered, and at what limit. And does that limit apply separately or erode your general liability aggregate. An agency with a substantial general liability limit and a small assault and battery sublimit is insured for the claims it will not have.
If you are a brand new agency, assault and battery is a problem
This is the part nobody tells you before you file, so here it is directly: we have not found a market willing to write assault and battery coverage for a security agency with no operating history. Carriers want to see at least a year in business, and most would rather see two. When it does become available, it costs more than an established agency pays for the same coverage.
At the one-year mark it becomes a conversation rather than an automatic no, and what carries that conversation is the owner’s background. Prior law enforcement service, military police, corrections, or senior corporate security experience all weigh heavily, because underwriters reading a file with almost no loss history are looking for evidence that someone in the room knows how force, detention, and escalation actually work. An owner with that record gets a hearing at twelve months that an owner without it may not get until twenty-four.
If that describes you, treat your resume as an underwriting document rather than a formality. Years of service, rank, assignments, use of force and defensive tactics instruction, any training certifications you hold or teach. Submit it properly. If it does not describe you, the substitute is a documented operation and a hire who does have that background in a supervisory role, which underwriters will also credit.
The rest of the program is placeable from day one. General liability, the surety bond, workers’ compensation, commercial auto. It is the one endorsement your clients care most about that you will have to wait for.
That has a practical consequence worth planning around. Because most commercial contracts, property managers, and associations require assault and battery coverage, a new agency is effectively shut out of those accounts in year one. The work available to you early tends to be the accounts that do not demand it: smaller private clients, unarmed observe-and-report posts, subcontracting under an established agency that carries its own coverage, and construction site or vacant property watch. Building the first year around what you can actually insure beats bidding accounts you cannot service.
What shortens the wait is documentation, and starting it on day one costs nothing. Written hiring and background screening standards. A written use of force policy your guards have been trained on and signed. Post orders in writing for each site. Training and requalification records. Owner and management experience in the industry, which carriers weigh heavily when there is no loss history to look at.
An agency that arrives at its second year with organized files and no claims is a genuinely different risk than it was at inception, and the market prices it that way. The agencies that struggle at that point are the ones who spent the first year without records, because a clean year you cannot document is worth very little at renewal.
Armed changes the placement, not just the price
Adding armed guards moves the account into a different market. Carriers that write unarmed patrol comfortably will decline armed work or exclude firearms liability, and the agencies that do write it underwrite the training, the qualification records, and the retention policies behind it.
If you are currently unarmed and considering armed contracts, that conversation needs to happen before you sign the contract, not after. The same applies in reverse: if a policy was written on the understanding that your guards are unarmed and that changes, the policy needs to change with it.
Canine, off-duty law enforcement, event and crowd work, and executive protection all carry the same principle. What the policy was told about your operation is what the policy responds to.
Workers’ compensation, and who counts as an employee
Florida requires workers’ compensation coverage for non-construction businesses once they reach the applicable employee threshold, including corporate officers unless they are properly exempt.
The complication specific to this industry is worker classification. Agencies that engage guards as independent contractors to control cost frequently find that the arrangement does not hold up, either at a workers’ compensation audit or when an injured guard files a claim. If the agency sets the schedule, provides the uniform, and directs the work, the relationship looks like employment regardless of what the paperwork says.
Your general liability premium is also auditable, usually against payroll or receipts, which is a second reason classification matters. Reporting honestly through the year costs less than settling up at audit.
The coverages your contracts will ask for next
Commercial auto, if you run marked patrol vehicles. A personal auto policy does not extend properly to a vehicle used for patrol work, and the claim is denied at exactly the wrong moment. Hired and non-owned auto belongs on the policy too, since guards driving their own cars between posts create exposure for the agency.
Professional liability, responding to allegations that the agency failed to perform its security duties rather than that it caused physical harm. Failure to detect, failure to respond, inadequate staffing of a post.
Employment practices liability, which this industry generates more of than most, given turnover, scheduling, and overtime disputes. Ask specifically how the policy treats wage and hour claims, because they are commonly excluded or heavily sublimited and they are among the most likely allegations you will face.
Umbrella or excess liability, which is often the fastest way to meet a client’s contract minimum without restructuring the underlying program.
Crime or fidelity coverage, if your guards have access to client property, cash, or keys.
Before you file, and before you bid
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Confirm your general liability meets the state’s filing requirement and extends to employees in the course of employment
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Confirm the surety bond is in place, and start it early since it is underwritten on credit
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Confirm assault and battery coverage, its limit, and whether it shares your general liability aggregate
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Confirm firearms liability separately if any post is armed
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Confirm the additional insured, primary and noncontributory, and waiver of subrogation endorsements your contracts require are actually on the policy
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Confirm every vehicle used for patrol is on a commercial auto policy, with hired and non-owned included
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Confirm your guards are correctly classified for workers’ compensation
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Read the insurance exhibit on any contract before signing it
We place this class, and we file the paperwork
Prestige Insurance Group writes security agencies across Florida, armed and unarmed, from single-post operations to multi-county agencies. We handle the liability, the surety bond, and the workers’ compensation, prepare the certificate with the information the department requires, let you add certificate holders and issue your own certificates around the clock as you pick up venues, and read client contracts before you sign them rather than after a certificate request reveals a problem.
Call the office nearest you or request a quote online. If you are renewing rather than starting out, send the declarations page and the contract exhibit and we will tell you where the gaps are.
Miami: 305-969-8776 Orlando: 407-993-2331 Stuart: 772-247-3788
General information only, not legal advice. Florida licensing, bonding, and insurance requirements change and apply differently depending on the license class and services performed; refer to the Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services and qualified counsel for the requirements that apply to your agency.
