Before you sign anything, ask a commercial contractor these ten questions: Are you licensed in my state and can you show current insurance certificates? How many projects like mine have you completed in the last five years? Who will be my day-to-day point of contact? What is your safety record and EMR? Can I visit an active jobsite? How do you handle change orders and cost overruns? What does your schedule and pre-construction process actually look like? Which subcontractors will you use and how are they vetted? What warranty do you provide after closeout? And, plainly: what happens when something goes wrong? The quality of the answers, not the polish of the pitch, tells you who to hire.

Below is the vetting framework we hand to owners who ask us how to evaluate a commercial builder, including us.

Is your license current in the state where my project will be built?

A general contractor licensed in North Carolina is not automatically permitted to build in South Carolina, Virginia, Tennessee, or Georgia. Ask for the license number, the state, and the classification limit. A retail upfit and a 60,000 square foot aircraft hangar require very different qualifications. For reference, Hayco is licensed across the Carolinas, Virginia, Tennessee, and Georgia, and we match the license class to the project scope before we ever bid.

What insurance do you carry, and can I be named as additional insured?

Ask for a current Certificate of Insurance showing general liability, workers’ compensation, auto, and umbrella coverage. Then ask the carrier to send it directly to you. Contractors who balk at that step are telling you something.

How many projects like mine have you delivered?

“Commercial” covers a lot of ground. A contractor who has built ten medical office buildings is not necessarily the right partner for a distribution warehouse or a judicial center. Ask for three recent projects that match your building type, then ask for the owner’s phone number, not just a logo on a website. Our portfolio spans healthcare, industrial, aviation, retail, institutional, and mixed-use work, and we send references who will actually pick up the phone.

Who is my point of contact once construction starts?

The person selling you the job is often not the person running it. Ask for the project manager’s name, their tenure with the company, and the last two projects they closed out. Ask how often you’ll get written progress updates and who signs off on RFIs.

Design-build or general contracting: which fits my project?

If you don’t yet have drawings, design-build folds architecture and construction into one contract, one team, and one accountable party. That usually shortens the schedule and cuts the finger-pointing when a detail needs to change. If you already have a full set of stamped drawings, a traditional general contracting arrangement may cost less. A good contractor will tell you honestly which fits your situation.

What is your safety record?

Ask for the company’s Experience Modification Rate (EMR) and OSHA 300 logs from the last three years. An EMR under 1.0 is the industry benchmark. Anything above that means the insurance market thinks the company has an above-average injury rate, and you’ll feel it in premiums, delays, and morale on site.

How do you handle change orders?

Every commercial project has changes. What matters is the process. Ask how change orders are priced, how long approval takes, and whether the contractor marks up subcontractor changes. Ask for a sample change order log from a recent project. If they can’t produce one, keep looking.

Which subcontractors will be on my job?

Ask for the shortlist of electrical, mechanical, plumbing, and site subs the contractor plans to use, and how long they’ve worked together. Long relationships mean predictable pricing and fewer surprises on close-out.

What does closeout and warranty look like?

Get specifics: punch list turnaround, as-built documentation, O&M manuals, training for building systems, and the warranty period on both workmanship and equipment. One year is standard on workmanship; some contractors extend it.

What happens when something goes wrong?

The best answer isn’t “nothing goes wrong.” It’s a straight description of how the contractor handled a real problem on a recent job, what it cost, and how the client felt at the end. At Hayco, we say we do what we say we’re going to do, and we’d rather be judged by how we handle the hard weeks than the easy ones.

If you’re weighing contractors right now and want a straight conversation about your project, get in touch. Bring the hard questions.