Payment is not automatic. An insured company provides a documented path for the claim; the outcome depends on the evidence, coverage and exclusions, pre-existing damage, and published liability limits. With JAS, report it within 24 hours at support@jascleaning.com: we document the report and route it through the applicable claim and insurance process. That process determines the resolution; this page does not promise one in advance.
Worth saying up front what this article will not do. It will not tell you what Florida law requires, and it will not tell you what your homeowner or renter policy covers. That is answered by the policy document and the agent whose name is on it, not by a cleaning company writing on the internet. What we can give you is the checkable part: the real sequence, in the order it happens, and the sentences we publish — including the one almost nobody shows you before you hire.
First: did you hire a person, or a company?
This distinction decides nearly everything else, and in Miami plenty of people make it without noticing they are making it. If you hired someone directly — a neighbor’s recommendation, paid in cash, no invoice — there is no employer standing behind them. That is not a slight on the person: it is that the claim has nowhere to go except between the two of you, and it usually ends in an uncomfortable conversation about an object neither of you can replace painlessly.
There is also a third shape that looks like a company and is not: the platform or agency that merely connects you with independent cleaners. There the right question is not “are you insured?” but “whose policy answers for the person walking into my home, and will you put that in writing before the first visit?” Who comes in and who answers for them are the same question from two sides; we take the first half apart in do cleaning companies run background checks.
The first ten minutes decide the next ten days
The natural impulse is to sweep up the pieces and get on with the day. Wait a beat and do four things — they take less time than arguing about it later:
- Do not throw the pieces away yet. A broken piece says things a photo cannot: where it failed, whether the hardware was already corroded, whether it had been glued once before.
- Photograph it where it landed — wide first, then close — before anything moves. The context is half the value of the photo.
- Note the time and which visit it was. A claim hangs on a specific visit, not on “sometime last week”.
- Put it in writing, not just a word at the door. An email carries a date; a friendly exchange in the hallway does not. Ask for the boring sentence: “please document this against today’s visit”.
None of this is suspicion. It is that memory is not evidence. Three days later, with the house lived in again, nobody can honestly separate “it broke on Tuesday” from “we noticed it on Tuesday” — and that ambiguity is the one thing that turns a twenty-minute process into a dispute.
Why a reporting window exists at all
Our Terms publish the route: if something is damaged during a clean, tell us within 24 hours at support@jascleaning.com; we document the report in your CleanCheck and route it through the applicable claim and insurance process. Coverage, exclusions, evidence, and published liability limits determine the outcome; reporting within 24 hours does not promise payment. It is deliberately the same window as the reclean guarantee: one number to remember when a visit goes wrong, whether that is a chipped counter or a shelf that never got wiped.
A short window sounds like a trap until you think about what a house does in a day: kids, guests, the dog, someone shifting the table. The more time passes, the less anyone can honestly say about when the mark appeared. A company that publishes no window is not giving you longer — it is leaving the rule unwritten, so it can be decided on the day you call.
The photos are the whole argument
The same Terms say our team photographs work areas before and after the clean to document the service in your CleanCheck report. It is the “before” half that nobody values until they need it: it is the record of how the thing looked when the team walked in. On eligible completed visits the report carries the checklist status and customer-safe photos — and that is what turns a disagreement into a claim somebody can process.
Two practical notes. First, service photos auto-delete after 90 days by default, and you can extend that or delete them sooner (it is in the Privacy Policy): if something is going to be contested, ask for them to be preserved before the clock runs out. Second, if you run a short-term rental, timestamped before-and-after photos are exactly what separates “the departing guest broke it” from “the turnover crew broke it”. In Miami, with a packed winter season and constant turnover, that distinction pays for itself.
The paragraph almost nobody shows you: the limit
General liability coverage is not a blank check, and an honest company tells you where it ends before you hire, not after. The same Terms publish the ceiling word for word: to the maximum extent Florida law allows, our services are provided with professional care but otherwise “as is”; we are not liable for indirect or consequential damages; and our total liability for any claim is limited to the amount you paid for the service giving rise to it. Along with the sentence that follows it: nothing in those terms limits liability that cannot be limited by law.
We publish it because it is the part that decides whether the rest means anything. Beside it sits what we do carry: $2,000,000 general liability coverage and every cleaner background-checked, with a certificate available on request — email bookings@jascleaning.com with your subject line “COI” and the entity name, and most certificates are returned within 2 business hours. All of that lives on the insurance page and on transparency. What you will not find is the word “bonded”: we publish no bond, and what each document actually proves is taken apart in licensed, bonded and insured.
Miami breaks things in its own way
Salt air and humidity got there first. Near the coast, hardware corrodes from the inside out: towel bars, shower-door rollers, closet-rod brackets, cabinet hinges, toilet-seat bolts. A fixture that comes away in someone’s hand has often been failing for months. That is not a defense — it is the reason to photograph the piece instead of arguing about it: the metal tells its own story.
Damage does not always sound like glass. Miami houses and condos are full of terrazzo, marble and travertine, and those surfaces mark from the wrong product without anyone breaking anything. The only honest source on where a product may be used is its own label — not a rule of thumb in a blog post — so tell the crew what your floors and counters are before the first visit, and point out anything unlabeled. It is a two-minute conversation that heads off the kind of damage nobody photographs in time.
Hurricane season, June through November. From June to November, panels and storm shutters move in and out of a lot of houses, and the tracks on impact sliders carry weight that does not forgive a bad tug. Agree in advance whether anyone on the crew touches those at all. “We do not touch those” is a perfectly good answer, and it prevents the entire argument.
If you live in a building, management already thought about this. The vendor file, the certificate naming the association as certificate holder, the service-elevator pads and the move-in hours all exist precisely because damage in a corridor is the building’s problem rather than yours. Get the COI to management before the first visit, not after something happens: once it has happened, the paperwork arrives late for everyone.
The things insurance was never going to fix
Say this part without ornament: no policy replaces the thing with your grandmother’s handwriting on it. A claim can settle the value of an object; it cannot settle an irreplaceable one. The only real protection there is not contractual — it is that the object is not sitting on the counter on the day a stranger runs a cloth along it. Put it away, name the shelf nobody touches, and ask for it to go into the visit notes rather than trusting someone to remember. A serious crew would rather have a written instruction than an assumption.
The same logic runs the other way. Our Terms reserve the right to refuse or stop service where conditions are unsafe for our team, and that clause protects you too: nobody should be improvising on a borrowed ladder to reach a light fixture that weighs more than it looks.
Five questions to ask before you hire
- Who employs the person coming: you, or themselves?
- Do you carry general liability coverage, and will you email me the certificate?
- How long do I have to report damage, and where is that window published?
- Do you photograph before and after, and how long are those photos kept?
- What is your published limit of liability? (If there is no answer, that is the answer.)
Quick answers
Does a cleaning company have to pay if its cleaner breaks something?
A company carrying general liability coverage has somewhere to route the claim; a person you pay directly has no employer behind them, so it stays between the two of you. Whether a given claim is paid depends on that policy and on the limits the company publishes — which is why the two things worth reading before you hire are the reporting route and the liability limit. JAS publishes both in the Terms: damage is documented in your CleanCheck and routed through the applicable claim and insurance process, and total liability for any claim is limited to the amount you paid for the service giving rise to it.
Should my cleaner tell me if they break something?
Yes, on the same visit, before you find it yourself. A crew that reports a breakage on the spot is showing you that a process exists; one that hopes you notice next week is showing you the opposite. At JAS the Terms put damage in the visit record — it is documented in your CleanCheck and routed through the applicable claim and insurance process — so making the report is not a favor the cleaner is doing you, it is the job.
How long do I have to report damage from a cleaning?
With JAS it is 24 hours, in writing, at support@jascleaning.com — the same window as the reclean guarantee, so there is only one number to remember. Other companies set their own, and plenty set none at all and decide case by case, which is worse for you than a short published window: an unwritten rule can be whatever someone needs it to be on the day you call.
What if I only notice the damage a week later?
Say so anyway, in writing, and say plainly when you noticed rather than rounding the date. Outside the published window it is a request rather than a claim under the published route, and the photos carry more of the weight the later it gets. If it will be contested, ask for the photos from that visit to be preserved: they auto-delete after 90 days by default, and you can extend that or delete them sooner.
Does my renter or homeowner policy cover it instead?
We are not going to tell you what your policy does — the policy itself and the agent whose name is on it are the only honest sources for that, and a cleaning company guessing at your coverage is how bad advice starts. Two questions are worth asking them before you file anything: whether this kind of loss is covered at all, and whether your deductible is larger than the item. Often it is, and the answer changes what you do next.
My building requires a certificate of insurance. Does that cover damage inside my unit?
They are two different things. A certificate of insurance is evidence that a policy existed on the date printed on it, and the association normally asks to be named as certificate holder because it is thinking about the lobby, the elevator, and the corridor carpet — not your kitchen. Get it filed with management before the first visit rather than after something happens: email bookings@jascleaning.com with your subject line "COI" and the entity name; most certificates are returned within 2 business hours.
The short version
A policy and a procedure give a damage report somewhere to go; they do not guarantee payment. Do not throw the pieces out, photograph before you move anything, report in writing, and hang the report on a specific visit. With us: 24 hours, support@jascleaning.com, and damage documented in your CleanCheck and routed through the applicable claim and insurance process, where coverage, exclusions, evidence, and liability limits determine the outcome. The limit is published beside the route in the Terms. What a normal visit covers is on residential cleaning in Miami — starting at $225, with 28 items verified by photo.
This guide is part of the JAS operating playbook — written to publish the limit and the route together, which is the only way either of them means anything.