Who pays when a house cleaner breaks something: 12 incidents, sourced

Every insurer's cleaning page lists the same few accidents, and none lines them up against the exclusions or against the other sellers' pages. We did that for twelve incidents: the ten the checker on the home page answers, plus two more. GL below means general liability.

The 12 incidents

Checked 1 October 2026. Each row reports what the pages we read say, not what a particular policy form says.

Incident	Policy that usually responds	Exclusion or condition to check	Where sources disagree	Sources
A vase slips out of your hands while you dust it	GL if the form has no care, custody or control (CCC) exclusion; otherwise a CCC or bailee endorsement	The exclusion for property in your care. NerdWallet's example is holding a vase to clean it. Thimble says its cleaning policy includes this coverage	Whether a form carries the exclusion at all. Hartford's cleaning page doesn't use the term, and Simply Business's FAQ treats cracking a TV while dusting as ordinary GL	NerdWallet, Thimble, Insureon, Simply Business
You knock a vase off a shelf with the mop handle	GL	Property damage limit and deductible. The claim is this simple only if the vase wasn't in your hands	None on the plain case	Thimble, Simply Business, ERGO NEXT
The wrong product etches a client's marble counter	GL, professional liability or a CCC endorsement, depending on the page	Whether the form excludes property you're working on. Thimble says damage from an error in your work is often not insurable	Simply Business sends it to professional liability or CCC. biBERK and Hartford say GL can cover damaged carpet. No page says how its own form treats an etched counter	Simply Business, biBERK, Hartford, Thimble
A client slips on a floor you just mopped	GL, bodily injury	The injured person can't be on your payroll: biBERK sends employee injuries to workers' comp	None found	Hartford, Insureon, NerdWallet, biBERK, Progressive
A client says a ring went missing after your clean	A janitorial bond, which pays the client, or crime insurance with third-party coverage. BF Bond says GL doesn't cover deliberate theft	Conviction clause or proof of loss; whether you repay the surety; whether it covers you as owner	Repayment, below. Swift says bonds pay only after a conviction; NerdWallet calls proof of loss the better form	Swift Bonds, Insureon, NerdWallet, BF Bond
You lose a client's house keys	Lost key coverage, which Insureon says is usually an endorsement to GL	The limit; whether it covers every lock, fob and building key on the ring. It excludes criminal acts	None. Only Insureon describes it, and we found no price	Insureon, Insureon
You pull a muscle lifting supplies	Workers' comp, not GL	Whether your state requires it for you. Insureon recommends it for sole proprietors anyway, because health plans can deny work injuries	None on the policy	Insureon, Simply Business
Your vacuum is stolen from your car	Inland marine, also called tools and equipment	Whether it applies in transit. Insureon says business personal property covers gear stored at a designated location, and you still need inland marine in transit or at a jobsite	None. NEXT says GL isn't enough for theft	Insureon, ERGO NEXT
You rear-end someone on the way to a job	Commercial auto, or hired and non-owned auto if you drive your own car	Whether your personal auto policy excludes business use	Little. Insureon says personal auto is unlikely to cover it and Hartford says most policies don't. Hartford adds that some sole proprietors may need only personal auto	Hartford, Insureon
A stone floor cracks on a job booked through an app	Your own policy. The app's guarantee pays the customer, if at all	Handy caps floors and stone at $1,000, with the customer's insurance first. Thumbtack says its guarantee is not insurance	Handy's guarantee page calls bookings "insured"; its terms call the guarantee secondary	Handy, Handy terms, Thumbtack
A cleaning product, or mold you disturbed, makes a client sick	Bodily injury under cleaning liability insurance, per Hartford	A mold and bacteria exclusion. NerdWallet says mold limits may sit below your main limit	Hartford lists chemicals that make a client sick as a cleaning liability claim; NerdWallet flags mold as one GL may not pay. NEXT lists the claim but names no policy	Hartford, NerdWallet, ERGO NEXT
A key is stolen, or a door left unsecured, and the house is burgled	Not confirmed. Lost key coverage pays for locks, not for what's taken	Insureon says it would not replace stolen computers. NEXT says you could be held liable for theft or damage	No page names the policy that pays for the burglary	Insureon, ERGO NEXT

Rows 1 to 3 are explained in the care, custody and control guide, row 5 on the bonded and insured page, rows 6 and 12 in the lost key guide, and row 4 and the policy itself on the general liability page.

Where sources disagree

Damage to what you're cleaning: carrier pages and explainers disagree

Carrier product pages and explainers read as if they describe different policies. The Hartford's example is a cleaner whose equipment damages the carpet being treated, and it says GL can help pay to fix it. biBERK says GL can cover accidentally staining carpet or furniture. NerdWallet says standard GL excludes property damaged while in your physical care, and Thimble makes coverage turn on whether the form has the CCC exclusion.

Simply Business adds a third cut: GL for an accident like a dropped mop bucket, but professional liability or a CCC endorsement for the wrong chemical on marble. Insureon says the exclusion doesn't apply to real property, meaning buildings and permanently attached fixtures to the land, and then stops. It doesn't say whether a counter counts. None of the pages we read shows a carrier's form applied to a surface a cleaner damaged.

Ask: "If I damage the thing I'm cleaning, does this policy pay, and under which coverage part?"

Whether you repay a bond: sources say yes, no and maybe

Insureon's cost page says that unlike a typical policy, you must pay the amount back to the insurer. SuretyBonds.com says the cleaning company is ultimately responsible for reimbursing the surety, and Swift Bonds says the business then repays the surety. BondsExpress says the opposite: unlike a true surety bond, you don't have to indemnify the surety. NerdWallet splits the difference: you may have to reimburse the bond company if the employee responsible can't.

The Hartford describes a different product. Its fidelity bond for a housecleaning service can reimburse you for reimbursing your client. Same word, a different promise.

Before you buy, ask: "After a paid claim, does the surety come after me, and does this form cover theft from my client's home or only from my own business?"

What a platform guarantee is: Handy says insured, Thumbtack says not insurance

Handy's guarantee page says bookings paid for on its platform are insured. Its terms say the customer's own insurance goes first, cap floors and stone at $1,000, and exclude water damage, mold and jewelry. Thumbtack's terms say in capitals that the guarantee is not insurance, and its pro guide says it doesn't replace yours. The terms also have the customer assign Thumbtack their right to recover from the pro.

Airbnb is the odd one out. Its host liability page says people who help you host, like cleaners, are included. The platforms guide goes through each one.

Ask the platform: "If this guarantee pays my customer, can it come back to me?"

Method

The table draws on 23 pages from 15 companies, all read on 1 October 2026. Sixteen came down on a plain request with a browser user agent. Thimble's two pages and Thumbtack's two wouldn't load that way (a 403 or an empty shell), so we read them in a browser. biBERK, Progressive and SuretyBonds.com blocked both, so we read dated Wayback Machine copies: biBERK from 24 August 2026, Progressive from 24 September 2026 and SuretyBonds.com from 13 May 2026.

No state agency page is cited, because these incidents turn on policy wording. A fact about a company comes only from that company's own site, and NerdWallet is cited only for its own analysis.

What we couldn't confirm:

• How any carrier's own policy form treats surface damage. We read product pages, not forms.
• A left-on tap or flooding example. No carrier claims page we read had one, so it isn't in the table.
• A price for CCC, bailee or lost key coverage.
• Whether a bond covers theft by the owner rather than an employee.

Cite this page

To cite this page, give the title, the site name (House Cleaning Insurance), the checked date (1 October 2026) and the address, housecleaninginsurance.com/research/who-pays. We change the date when we re-read the sources.