Hiring an HDD contractor: licensing, insurance and bonding to verify
“What license do you need for directional drilling?” is the first thing most GCs and property owners ask once a bore is on the table, and in Georgia the answer surprises them: there is no license by that name. What exists is a stack of separate paperwork, each piece covering a different failure. The certificate, the endorsements, the bond and the state registration each prove one thing about an HDD contractor, and each can be checked in about ten minutes before the rig shows up.
Georgia does not license an HDD contractor by that name
Georgia has no license called directional drilling, boring or HDD. The Georgia State Board of Utility Contractors licenses utility contractors, cities and counties issue business licenses, and the road owner decides who may work in its right of way. An HDD contractor works inside those systems, and none of them tests whether a crew can steer a bore.
Whether a shallow conduit bore falls inside the utility contractor definition gets argued both ways, so ask the licensing board in writing. Permit responsibility varies by project; settle who files before pricing.
The real screening is your own prequalification: safety program, experience modifier letter, OSHA logs, drilling fluid plan. A license checks none of that. NASTT’s HDD Good Practices Guidelines, now in a fifth edition, is what a competent bore plan is written against, and a real HDD contractor answers questions about it in specifics: bend radius, fluid pressure, where the potholes go, what the crew does when returns stop.
What a certificate of insurance shows, line by line
A certificate of insurance, usually on the ACORD 25 form, is a one-page summary of the policies an HDD contractor held on the day it was printed: carriers, policy numbers, limits and dates. Not a policy, not a promise. The ACORD 25 form states that it confers no rights on the certificate holder.
| Certificate line | What to check | Red flag |
|---|---|---|
| Commercial general liability | Occurrence form; aggregate not already spent this policy year | Claims-made form on CGL |
| Automobile liability | Owned units covered; the rig and vac trailer ride public roads | Hired and non-owned only |
| Umbrella or excess | Sits over GL, auto and employers liability | Excludes pollution |
| Workers compensation | Georgia listed; owner-exclusion box; who the audit counts | Owner excluded on a crew of helpers |
| Contractors pollution liability | Drilling fluid inside the definition of pollutant | No pollution line near a creek or gas main |
| Description of operations | “Endorsement attached”, and the endorsements themselves | “When required by written contract”, no contract in hand |
| Certificate holder | Your legal entity, not “for information only” | Issued to someone else and forwarded |
Workers compensation is the line to read hardest. The BLS injury and illness table for 2024 puts water and sewer line construction at 1.9 recordable cases per 100 full-time workers and highway, street and bridge work at 2.5, against 2.3 for all private industry. The common workaround on a small crew is an owner who excludes himself and runs the helpers as 1099 subcontractors. The policy audit is where that unravels. Ask the agent, not the HDD contractor, who the audit counts.
Pollution liability is the line that pays when bentonite surfaces in a creek bed. Standard general liability forms exclude pollution, and the contractors pollution policy fills that gap only if drilling fluid sits inside its definition of pollutant. Some forms exclude “materials brought to the site”. Drilling fluid is exactly that. Limits matter most near pipelines: PHMSA’s excavation damage fact sheet notes that of all pipeline failure causes, fatalities and injuries are most likely with excavation damage. Then check the auto symbol. Hired-and-non-owned only, on a crew that hauls its own drill, tells you where the savings came from.
One more line hides in the GL box: the aggregate, the most the policy pays in a year across every job. Without a per-project aggregate endorsement, a claim on someone else’s job in March can spend the limit meant for yours in October.
Additional insured is the endorsement, and there are two of them
Additional insured means the contractor’s general liability policy has been amended to cover you, the owner or GC, for claims arising out of its work. The certificate can say it. Only the endorsement does it. And it comes in two forms: ongoing operations, which lapses when the crew leaves, and completed operations, which follows the work.
The second one matters on a bore because the failure modes are delayed. A conduit ovalled during pullback, a duct bank with a void under one corner, a water service pulled through a rock seam without a sleeve: none of it shows the day the crew demobilizes. It shows when the paving roller passes, or when the driveway settles next spring. The ongoing endorsement is gone by then.
Ask for the endorsements by form, not by description. On the standard ISO forms, CG 20 10 adds you for ongoing operations and CG 20 37 for completed operations. Carriers write their own versions too, so read the schedule. A blanket endorsement covering anyone the contractor is “required by written contract” to add works only if your contract says so, signed before the work starts. And completed operations cover lasts only while the contractor keeps renewing, so write into the contract how long after completion you stay named.
Two more phrases in the description box carry weight. Primary and non-contributory means the HDD contractor’s policy pays first, before yours. Waiver of subrogation means its carrier will not come after you for what it paid.
Bid, performance and payment bonds, and when an HDD contractor needs one
A bond is not insurance. It is a three-party guarantee: the surety promises the owner the contractor will do what the contract says, and if the surety pays, it collects from the contractor. Most private bores never need one. Federal work above the FAR threshold does, state and local public work sets its own rules, and a GC’s surety may push a bond down onto a large subcontract.
SBA’s surety bond program page defines the four contract bonds: a bid bond ensures full payment and performance bonding from the bidder, a performance bond ensures full completion, a payment bond ensures full payment to suppliers and subcontractors, and an ancillary bond covers the rest, such as maintenance. SBA guarantees bonds on contracts up to $9 million non-federal and $14 million federal. Federally, FAR 28.102-1 requires performance and payment bonds on any construction contract over $150,000, and between $35,000 and $150,000 the contracting officer picks alternative payment protections instead.
Do not ask an HDD contractor for a performance bond on a private bore below the public thresholds. On an SBA-guaranteed performance or payment bond the contractor also pays SBA 0.6 percent of the contract price, on top of the surety’s premium. Endorsements, retainage and a written locating plan buy a private owner more, for less.
GDOT-registered subcontractor is a registration, not a prequalification
GDOT’s construction contractors page says anyone seeking to bid on or perform work on Georgia DOT projects must be prequalified or registered, and that it has two types of qualifications: Prequalified Contractor and Registered Subcontractor. DUGS is a GDOT-registered subcontractor, which puts it on the second list.
The two are not the same. For prequalified firms, the same page says a Certificate of Qualification is generally valid for two years and that an expired one leaves the contractor ineligible to bid.
Registration is a listing, not a review of your job. It says nothing about the certificate of insurance in force this morning, so verify insurance the way you would for any HDD contractor, and find the firm in the directory GDOT links from that page.
The ten-minute check before an HDD contractor mobilizes
Ten minutes, seven calls or clicks, after the contract is signed and before the rig is on the trailer, because the certificate from the bid package is stale by then. Make the paperwork match the job you bought.
- Call the agent in the Producer box, on a number from the agency’s own website, and ask whether every policy is in force today and your additional insured endorsements have been issued.
- Read the policy periods against the bore dates; a November bore on a certificate whose GL renews in October needs a fresh certificate.
- Check the certificate holder box names your legal entity and the endorsements are attached.
- Ask for the local business license and match the entity name to the certificate and the contract; three names on three documents is the commonest mess and the easiest to fix before the first pull.
- On a GDOT-let project, look the firm up in GDOT’s directory of prequalified contractors and registered subcontractors.
- Ask for the Georgia 811 ticket number. Under the Georgia dig law as Georgia 811 summarizes it, notice is not less than two and not more than eight business days, and no excavating more than 30 calendar days after the effective date; Georgia 811 asks for three. How a Georgia 811 ticket runs before a bore walks the sequence.
- Ask who tracks the head and where the potholes go. Georgia 811’s 2025 Excavator Manual says directional drilling excavators “must always properly expose each utility facility crossing”, and OSHA’s bulletin describes potholing to the planned bore depth.
None of this verifies competence. An HDD contractor can carry every endorsement and still bury a conduit at half the specified depth. Paper protects you when things go wrong; the crew keeps them from going wrong. The twelve questions to ask an underground utility contractor test the crew, and how directional drilling actually works is worth reading before this one.
At DUGS, we coordinate required 811 notifications before drilling, and the person who quotes the job runs the drill, so these questions get answered at the rig.
Frequently asked questions
What license do you need for directional drilling?
In Georgia, none by that name, and there is no HDD license. Georgia licenses utility contractors through the State Board of Utility Contractors, so ask the board in writing whether your bore falls inside the definition. Federal duties bind any HDD contractor regardless: the OSHA excavation standard at 1926.651(b) requires the estimated location of underground utilities to be determined before an excavation is opened, and their exact location to be found by safe and acceptable means as the work approaches them.
What insurance should an HDD contractor carry?
Five lines. Commercial general liability on an occurrence form. Automobile liability covering the firm’s own trucks and trailers, not just hired and non-owned. Workers compensation with employers liability and Georgia listed as a covered state. An umbrella above those three. And contractors pollution liability with drilling fluid inside its definition of pollutant, the line most buyers forget. OSHA’s 2018 bulletin on avoiding underground utilities during HDD names the exposures those policies answer: rotating parts, high-pressure drilling fluid, and damage to electric and gas lines, with electrocution, fire and explosion as the outcomes. Match limits to your contract, then ask for the endorsements.
Do I need a bonded contractor for a utility bore?
On federal work, yes. The Federal Acquisition Regulation at 28.102-1 requires performance and payment bonds on federal construction contracts exceeding $150,000. Between $35,000 and $150,000, the contracting officer selects two or more alternative payment protections, such as a payment bond or a letter of credit. Unpaid subs and suppliers claim on the payment bond. State and local public work in Georgia sets its own bond rules, so read the solicitation. On private work a bond is a choice, and on a small bore usually a poor one.
What is a certificate of insurance?
A certificate of insurance is a one-page summary, usually on the ACORD 25 form, listing a contractor’s policies, carriers, policy numbers, limits and dates as of the day it was issued. The ACORD 25 form states that it confers no rights on the certificate holder; rights come from endorsements. One example of that gap: one national forest’s permit page (Klamath) accepts a certificate as proof but makes the permit holder obtain an additional insured endorsement from every contractor and subcontractor, covering ongoing and completed operations. A certificate shows a policy existed on the day it was printed; only the endorsement puts you under it.
What does GDOT-registered subcontractor mean?
It means the firm is on one of the two lists Georgia DOT keeps. GDOT’s page for construction contractors says anyone seeking to bid on or perform work on GDOT projects must be prequalified or registered, and that it has two types of qualifications, Prequalified Contractor and Registered Subcontractor. That is the second list: a registration, not a prequalification, and it says nothing about the insurance in force. Nor is it a license: Georgia’s State Board of Utility Contractors licenses utility contractors.
How do I check a contractor’s insurance is real?
Call the agent named in the Producer box, on a number you found yourself, and ask whether each policy is in force today and whether the additional insured endorsements for your project have been issued. Ask for the endorsements as PDFs. Match the insured’s legal name to the contract and the business license, and check policy dates against bore dates. Ask the HDD contractor for the Georgia 811 ticket number: Georgia 811’s process page asks excavators to submit a ticket at least three business days before digging, so ask when it was filed and whether the bore date has slipped since.
