South Florida has no shortage of painting contractors. Drive through any neighborhood in Stuart, Coral Springs, or Vero Beach and you’ll find trucks with magnetic door signs and handwritten flyers on telephone poles. Some of those crews do great work. Others disappear after a deposit, use the wrong products for the Florida climate, or leave you with a paint job that peels within eighteen months.
Choosing well isn’t complicated, but it does require asking a few specific questions before you hire. Here’s what to check.
Verify the license
Florida requires painting contractors to hold either a state-issued license or a local county/city occupational license, depending on the scope of work. You can look up a state license through the Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation (DBPR) website in about two minutes. If a contractor can’t give you a license number or gets vague about it, move on.
Confirm insurance — specifically workers’ comp
This one matters more than most homeowners realize. Florida law requires contractors with employees to carry workers’ compensation insurance. If a painter gets injured on your property and their employer doesn’t have workers’ comp, you could end up liable.
Ask for a certificate of insurance naming both general liability and workers’ compensation. A legitimate company will email it to you without hesitation. Follow up with the insurer if you want to verify it’s current — certificates can be issued for policies that have since lapsed.
Ask about their workforce directly
One of the clearest dividing lines in the painting industry is whether a company uses its own employees or subcontractors. This matters for a few reasons:
- Employees are trained to a company’s standards and held accountable for quality
- Subcontractors may or may not carry their own coverage
- If work is warrantied, a company whose employees did the work can actually stand behind it
At KB Painting we’ve used our own employees — never subcontractors — and our crew brings 25+ years of combined experience perfecting the craft. Learn more about how we work.
Check their track record on review platforms
Look beyond the star rating. Read through recent reviews and look for patterns: do customers mention prep quality, reliability, and how the crew treated their home? Are there responses from the company when something went wrong? A contractor who handles the occasional problem professionally tells you more than one with nothing but five-star reviews.
KB Painting’s reviews page reflects real projects across the Treasure Coast and South Florida — you can read them and see the range of work we do.
Understand what products they use
Paint quality varies significantly, and the product matters especially in South Florida’s environment. UV exposure, humidity, and salt air degrade lower-grade paints faster. Ask what paint brand and product line they intend to use, and whether it’s been selected for your specific substrate — stucco, wood, concrete block — and whether the home is near the coast.
Contractors using premium products like Sherwin-Williams Duration or Emerald will cost a bit more but the coating will last meaningfully longer.
Look at the estimate carefully
A written, itemized estimate is the professional standard. It should specify surfaces to be painted, prep steps, paint products and number of coats, timeline, and any warranty. A one-line quote with a price but no detail is a red flag — you won’t know what you’re comparing to another contractor’s bid or what’s been left out.
Ask about their warranty
A confident contractor backs their work. Ask what’s covered, for how long, and what process you’d follow if something failed. Some companies offer a warranty in their sales pitch but bury exclusions that make it nearly worthless. Our post on what a 5-year painting warranty actually covers walks through what to look for.
A note on price
The cheapest quote is rarely the best value in a Florida climate. Skipped prep steps and budget paint are invisible on day one and obvious at month eighteen. That said, premium pricing should come with premium service — so you shouldn’t have to accept poor communication, missed timelines, or unexplained substitutions either.
Ready to start comparing?
KB Painting offers free written estimates with no obligation. Bring us your project, ask us the same questions you’d ask anyone else, and we’ll give you straight answers — including ones that might send you in a different direction if we’re not the right fit.
