Working With Plumbers Pro: FAQs for California plumbers

Plumbers Pro is a specialty insurance service of Pembroke Insurance Solutions, a licensed California insurance agency, built for C-36 plumbing contractors. The two are not separate companies.

Plumbers Pro is the brand and the software: the online application at /quote, the X-Mod review, the bond request page and the contractor dashboard being built. Its job is to make buying and keeping business insurance take less of your day.

Pembroke Insurance Solutions is the licensed agency. Casey Sullivan, Pembroke's principal and a licensed producer, reviews the submissions that come through the site, places coverage with carriers and is accountable for the advice given and the policies placed. Pembroke also runs a sister program, Vesta Risk, for home health and hospice agencies.

When you submit anything on this site, it goes to Pembroke. When you receive a quote, it comes from an insurance carrier after a producer has worked the file. Pembroke Insurance Solutions holds California insurance license #6011028.

No. Plumbers Pro is a program of Pembroke Insurance Solutions, an independent insurance agency. It is not an insurance company and not a surety.

The difference matters. An insurance company (the carrier) underwrites your risk, issues the policy, collects the premium and pays covered claims. An agency represents you in that process: it gathers your information, presents your business to carriers whose appetite fits plumbing work, explains the terms that come back and helps you keep the policy working after it is bound.

Because Pembroke is independent rather than owned by a single carrier, it can place your account with more than one market. The policy you end up with is a contract between your company and the carrier named on it, and that carrier, not Plumbers Pro, decides whether a claim is covered.

Nothing on this site is an offer of insurance, a binder or a guarantee of coverage or price. Every quote comes from a carrier after a licensed producer's review.

You complete a five-step application at /quote, a licensed Pembroke producer reviews it, and quotes come back from carriers, usually within a few business days. There is no instant online quote and nothing binds automatically.

The five steps are Business (CSLB license, entity type, contact details), Operations (the work your crews do, revenue, employees, vehicles), Coverage (which lines you want quoted and what you carry now), Workers' compensation (payroll by class code, your X-Mod if you know it, claims history) and Review and submit. Your answers save in your browser as you go, so you can stop and come back.

After you submit, you get a reference number. Within one business day a producer checks the submission for completeness and eligibility. If loss runs or a rating worksheet are needed, you receive a secure request; the site itself does not accept file uploads. Over the next one to three business days your file goes to markets whose appetite fits C-36 plumbing operations. You then review the terms and pricing and decide whether to bind.

Yes. Pembroke Insurance Solutions is an independent agency, so it can present your business to more than one carrier and show you the results side by side.

Here is how that works in practice. A producer reads your application and decides which markets have an appetite for your mix of work: residential service, commercial, new construction, sewer and drain, gas lines. Not every carrier wants every plumbing risk, and sending a file to a market that will decline it wastes everyone's time. The file goes to the markets that fit, and the quotes that return are compared on limits, exclusions, endorsements, audit terms and the whole premium including fees and taxes, not price alone.

Two things to expect. We will tell you when a market declines you, and why, as far as the carrier tells us. And we will not claim savings we cannot support; the comparison is the comparison. If your current carrier is the best fit, a producer will say so.

Have your CSLB license number, your federal EIN, annual payroll by class code and a rough picture of your operations ready before you start; loss runs and other documents come later, through a secure request.

Specifically, the application asks for:

• Business basics: legal name, DBA, CSLB license number, entity type, years in business, address and contact.
• Operations: the kinds of work you do, gross revenue for the last twelve months, employee count, subcontractor costs and the number of owned vehicles.
• Coverage: which lines you want quoted, your current carrier, renewal date, current GL limit, expiring premium and any contract requirements you have to meet.
• Workers' compensation: payroll split among 5183 (plumbing), 8810 (clerical) and 8742 (outside sales), whether officers are included, your X-Mod if you know it and claims in the last three years.

The EIN is optional but useful; your rating history is filed under it. If you want commercial auto or tools and equipment quoted, a producer will follow up for a vehicle list (year, make, model, VIN, drivers) and a scheduled equipment list. Estimates are fine on the first pass.

Email the request to [email protected] or use the contact form, and include who the certificate is for and what the contract asks for.

A certificate of insurance (COI) is a one-page summary of your coverage that a general contractor, property manager or city issues as a condition of letting you on the job. To produce one correctly, a producer needs:

• The certificate holder's exact legal name and mailing address.
• The insurance section of the contract, or the GC's insurance requirements sheet, so the certificate matches what was asked for: limits, additional insured status, primary and non-contributory wording, waiver of subrogation.
• The job name or address if the holder wants it referenced.
• Any deadline you are working against.

A certificate can only show what the policy actually provides. If a contract requires an endorsement your policy does not carry, the producer will tell you and request it from the carrier rather than issue a certificate that overstates your coverage. Sending the contract wording with the first request is the fastest way through.

The X-Mod review is a free read of your WCIRB experience rating worksheet and your loss runs by a licensed Pembroke producer, who tells you plainly whether anything looks wrong and what, if anything, can be done about it.

Your experience modification is built from your payroll by classification and your claims over a three-year window. Errors in either input, such as payroll in the wrong class, undocumented wage splits, claims that stayed open or reserved higher than they should have, or recoveries that were never reported, carry straight into the factor and into your premium.

To start, submit the short form at /x-mod-review. The calculator on that page is illustrative; the review itself works from the real documents. What we need from you:

• Your business name, contact details and, ideally, your federal EIN, which is how your rating history is filed.
• A signed authorization so Pembroke can request your rating worksheet and loss runs. Nothing is requested from WCIRB or your carrier until you sign it, and nothing is uploaded through this site.

A producer responds within one business day. There is no obligation to quote.

Yes. Pembroke places California contractor bonds through a surety partner: the $25,000 contractor's bond, the qualifying individual bond and the $100,000 LLC employee/worker bond, as well as disciplinary bonds and bid, performance and payment bonds for contract work.

Pembroke is not a surety. The bond is written by a California-licensed surety company, which quotes the premium, collects payment and files the bond with CSLB. Payment is made with the surety or its processor, never on this website.

Online bond quoting and purchase through the surety partner is being activated on /bonds. Until it is live, every request is handled personally by a licensed producer: you tell us which bond you need, your business name and CSLB license number (or that you are applying now), and the producer sends you the surety's short application. Most license bonds are quoted the same business day; some need a short underwriting review.

A bond keeps your license active; it does not replace general liability or workers' compensation. If you need both, one conversation covers them.

A producer starts your renewal review 60 to 90 days before the policy expires, confirms what has changed in your business, and remarkets the account when doing so is likely to help.

The review covers the things that move a plumbing contractor's premium and coverage from year to year: payroll by class code and whether it reflects the work actually done, revenue, headcount, new vehicles or equipment, new types of work (gas lines, trenchless, new construction), contract requirements from the GCs you now work for, and your updated X-Mod when it publishes.

Not every renewal should go back out to market. If your incumbent carrier's renewal terms are competitive and the coverage still fits, moving for a small difference can cost you continuity and goodwill at claim time. When terms have hardened, your operations have changed or the current form no longer fits, the producer markets the account and shows you the comparison.

You will see the whole premium, including fees and taxes, before you decide. Nothing renews with a different carrier without your sign-off. If your renewal is inside 60 days, use /contact now.

Yes. As your agency, Pembroke helps you report the claim to the right carrier, makes sure it lands with an adjuster, and follows up when the process stalls. The carrier, not the agency, investigates, adjusts and pays the claim.

When something happens, an injured employee, a flooded unit after a repipe, a van in a collision, the fastest path is usually to report directly to the carrier using the claims number on your policy, because most carriers run claims intake around the clock. Then tell us. Email [email protected] or use /contact with the date, what happened, who was involved and the claim number if you have one.

From there a producer can explain which policy responds and what the carrier will ask for, help you understand reservation of rights letters or coverage questions, press for a status update when weeks go by without one, and keep an eye on how the claim is reserved, since open reserves on a workers' compensation claim flow into your future X-Mod.

Coverage decisions belong to the carrier under the policy's terms. What the agency offers is a knowledgeable advocate who knows your file.