Most people hiring a mold company are doing it for the first time, under some pressure, and with no way to judge whether the work was done properly afterwards. That last part is the real problem. When a roof leaks again you know. When mold comes back a year later, most people assume they were unlucky.
So here is what to ask, what the answers should sound like, and a few things about how this industry works that are not generally explained.
Start here: in Louisiana, the state license is the gold standard. If a company currently holds a mold remediation license, they are qualified to do mold work in this state — the board has already checked the things the board checks, insurance included. That is the floor, and most of the companies people call do not clear it.
Two honest qualifications. Whether a licensed contractor is good at the work is a different question, and one the license does not answer — that is what the rest of this page is for. And a license proves a company carries insurance; it does not prove that insurance covers mold, which is question three below.
The seven questions
1. What is your license number?
Then look it up with the state licensing board rather than taking the answer at face value. It takes a minute.
What you want: a number given immediately, without hesitation, that checks out.
What should worry you: vagueness, "we're fully insured" offered instead of a number, or a license in a different classification entirely.
In Louisiana, a mold remediation license is only required once the mold portion of the job reaches $7,500. Below that, nobody is required to hold anything. More on that here.
2. Are you insured for mold — and can I see the certificate?
This is the question with the biggest gap between what people assume and what is true, and 2026 is the year to ask it.
Louisiana just raised the bar. Act 757 increased the minimum general liability insurance for mold remediation, residential and home improvement contractors from $100,000 to $500,000, effective August 1, 2026. The licensing board notified contractors over the summer and is enforcing it now. It also gained additional authority to act against contractors whose insurance does not match the work they are licensed to do.
So the first half of the question is simply whether they are current. A license issued before this summer does not prove the coverage behind it still qualifies. Some companies are going to quietly fall out of compliance rather than pay for the increase.
The second half is the one almost nobody knows to ask. Even $500,000 of general liability can amount to nothing for your job, because mold is commonly excluded from general liability altogether. The standard industry endorsement — the fungi or bacteria exclusion, form CG 21 67 — removes both liability for mold damage and the cost of testing for, cleaning up, removing or containing it. A contractor can hold a valid half-million-dollar policy, tell you truthfully that they are fully insured, and have zero coverage for the work being done in your house.
Covering mold properly is not one policy, it is a package, and the general liability inside it has to be rated for mold — a different underwriting class from ordinary contractor’s insurance. Mold Shield is fully insured for mold remediation, which is standard practice for any company that means to stay in this business — but it is worth saying out loud, because the phrase “fully insured” on its own tells you nothing about whether mold is covered.
We will send you our certificate on request. Ask anybody else you call for theirs, and compare the two — not the totals, the lines.
Here is the tell, if you want a shortcut. Insurance is priced on risk. The cheap general liability policies — the kind sold to handymen, a few hundred dollars a year — are cheap precisely because of everything they exclude, and mold is one of the first things out. Coverage rated for mold costs several times that, and it is rated on revenue, so it climbs as you do more work.
Which means the two policies are not versions of the same thing at different price points. They are different products. If they covered the same work they would cost the same, and they do not come close.
What you want: a current certificate of insurance you can actually read, showing fungi or pollution coverage rather than general liability alone. Any properly insured contractor can produce one the same day — their agent issues them routinely.
What should worry you: “we’re fully insured” as a complete answer, reluctance to send the certificate, or a certificate showing general liability and nothing about fungi or pollution. If mold is excluded and something goes wrong in your house, the policy does not respond — and you are the one holding it.
3. Is the person actually doing the work mold certified?
This is the question almost nobody asks, and it is the one that separates companies most sharply.
A Louisiana mold remediation license requires one owner, member or employee to be mold certified — the qualifying party. Everyone else on the crew can hold no mold certification at all, and often that certified person never attends a job.
What you want: a direct answer about the individual coming to your house.
What should worry you: redirecting to "the company is certified." That is a different statement, and they know it.
4. How will you contain the work area?
Removing mold means disturbing it. Disturbing it without containment moves spores into rooms that were previously fine — which is how a one-room problem becomes a whole-house problem.
What you want: sealing off the area, and negative air pressure so air flows into the containment rather than out of it. If they mention HEPA filtration and where the air discharges, better still.
What should worry you: no mention of containment. Some operators genuinely just spray and leave.
5. What do you think is causing the moisture?
The single most revealing question on this list.
Mold is a symptom. If the water source is still arriving, it grows back on schedule, and you have paid for the same job twice. In South Louisiana the cause is frequently not a leak at all — it is an air conditioner cooling without dehumidifying, an attic running too hot, or a room with no air movement.
What you want: a theory, or at minimum a clear plan for finding out. Even "I'm not sure yet, here's what I'd check" is a good answer.
What should worry you: no interest in the question. Someone quoting removal without asking where the water came from is selling you a temporary result.
6. Are you also doing the testing?
They should not be, and in Louisiana they legally cannot.
State law makes it a violation to perform both mold assessment and mold remediation on the same property, and to own an interest in both companies. The reason is the obvious one: a company that tests your house and then gets paid to fix what it finds has an interest in finding more.
What you want: testing referred to an independent company, or no testing offered at all.
What should worry you: one company offering to do both, or referring you to a testing outfit it happens to own.
7. What does it cost, and what is the number based on?
You are entitled to a written scope and a price before work starts, not after.
What you want: a range or a figure, and a plain explanation of what drives it — area affected, materials, how much has to come out, whether the HVAC is involved.
What should worry you: refusal to discuss cost at all until someone is standing in your house, or a large number produced before anyone has looked properly.
Our own ranges are published. They are here.
Two things about this industry that are not explained to customers
The markup on subcontracted work
Mold jobs frequently involve other trades — HVAC, an attic ventilation correction, a rebuild after material is removed.
Here is the standard practice. The restoration company takes a bid from a subcontractor, adds ten, twenty, sometimes forty percent on top as overhead and profit, submits that figure as its own price, and then subcontracts the work anyway. You pay the markup for the coordination.
This is not a scandal — it is normal, standard procedure across contracting generally. But almost no customer knows it is happening, and nobody volunteers it.
Worth asking: is any of this work being subcontracted, and is the price on the quote what the subcontractor charges?
We do not add that markup. Our founder ran that practice himself as a project manager and VP of operations before starting this company, which is how we know exactly how it works.
Mold-only versus everything-restoration
Most companies you will find do water, fire, storm, reconstruction and mold. There is nothing wrong with that, and for a large insurance loss it is often the right choice — they have the crews and the claims relationships.
The tradeoff is depth. Mold is one line item among many, and the technician who arrives may have been on a fire job yesterday.
A mold-only company does one thing. That matters most for the diagnostic half — figuring out where moisture is coming from in a humid climate — which is the part that determines whether the problem returns.
Things that sound like credentials but are not
- "Certified" with no specifics. Certified in what, by whom? There are many mold certifications of varying seriousness.
- "Licensed and insured." Insurance is not a qualification. Ask for the license number.
- Logos in the footer. Membership badges are usually paid.
Warning signs worth walking away from
- A price quoted over the phone before anyone has seen it
- Pressure to sign today, or a discount that expires
- Leading with what mold will do to your family's health rather than what is happening in the building
- Telling you over the phone that you have "toxic black mold" — nobody can identify a species by looking, let alone by listening
- Offering to test and then remediate
- No written scope of work
- A quote that grows substantially once work has already started
- No interest in where the water is coming from
- A quote for the spot you pointed at, and nothing else. If nobody looked at the rest of the house or asked why it grew there, you are being priced for square footage rather than for a problem
Get more than one opinion, and use them properly
Two or three evaluations is reasonable, especially on a larger job. But do not simply take the cheapest number — compare the scopes. A lower price usually means less work, and sometimes that less work is containment.
If one quote is dramatically below the others, ask what is not included. Frequently it is the part that stops the problem returning.
Anyone charging you for an evaluation is charging you to be sold to. Ours are free, and a fair number end with us saying the problem is smaller than expected or is not really ours to fix.
“Sponsored” means be cautious
You open your search engine, you type I need mold removal, and a stack of companies fills the top of the screen. It is natural to assume those are the best ones. That is not what the top of the screen is, and here is why it matters.
A large portion of the companies in the sponsored section are unvetted. They may or may not be licensed. They may or may not be certified. Some are not insured at all. Nobody checked before that ad went up.
Paying to be at the top is not a qualification. It is a budget.
Some of those names are not mold companies at all. They are brokers. Sometimes they take your details and sell them on to several companies at once, which is why five people call you back within the hour and none of them knows what you already told somebody. We know because we buy leads from some of them. It is common practice in this trade and we are not going to pretend otherwise.
What they mostly do now is transfer you live. You call the number on a website called something like XYZ Mold Removal, and a second later you are talking to a company with a completely different name — because the site was never a mold company, it was a phone number being sold.
So here is the tell, and it costs you nothing. Notice the name on the website before you dial. If the person who answers gives a different company name than the one you called, you have gone through a broker. That is not automatically a bad company on the other end — but you did not choose them, and you have no idea who they are.
It is also why this website exists — so you can find me directly instead of through someone selling your name.
The one check that settles nearly all of it
Look them up with the Louisiana State Licensing Board for Contractors. You do not need a license number to do it — you can search by company name, which is usually easier anyway. Plenty of contractors, us included, do not carry the number around in our heads.
If a company holds a current mold remediation license, you have learned several things at once. They are a real, registered business rather than a lead broker. They met the board's requirements to get it. And under Act 757, effective August 1, 2026, the board now requires their insurance to carry no exclusions for the work they are licensed to do — which is the single biggest thing that used to slip past people.
If you cannot find them, that tells you something too. It takes about a minute either way.
Common questions
How do I avoid getting scammed on mold remediation?
Start with what the company holds, because plenty hold nothing at all. There are companies doing mold work in Louisiana with no license and no certification of any kind — not one person on the payroll trained in mold. They found a process, and they are selling it.
In this state, licensing is the gold standard. Whether it is legally required depends on the size of the job, but a licensed company has met a bar. A company that has never bothered has not.
Certification is the lower bar, and it is worth asking about separately — but understand how it actually works. A company only needs one certified person to operate. In our experience, the people who turn up and do the work usually are not certified and never have been. There is one certified person somewhere in the company, and they are not the one in your hallway.
So ask two things, not one. Is the company licensed — and get the number. Is the person doing the work at my house certified, or just someone at the company? Almost nobody asks the second one, and it is the one that tells you who is actually going to be handling this.
What should I ask a mold remediation company before hiring them?
seven questions: what is your license number, is the person actually doing the work mold certified, how will you contain the work area, what do you think is causing the moisture, are you also doing the testing, and what does the price include. The moisture question is the most revealing — a company that quotes removal without asking where the water came from is selling a temporary result.
Why would a mold company not carry mold coverage?
Cost, almost always. A basic general liability policy is inexpensive because of what it excludes, and mold is among the first exclusions. Coverage rated for mold costs several times more and is rated on revenue, so the bill grows as the business does. It is a real expense to carry, which is exactly why some companies do the work without it and answer “yes, we’re insured” when asked, because technically they are — just not for this.
How do I check if a mold company is licensed in Louisiana?
Ask for the license number and verify it with the Louisiana State Licensing Board for Contractors. Note that a mold remediation license is only required once the mold portion of the job reaches $7,500, so below that threshold a company may legally hold no mold credential at all.
Should the same company test and remediate mold?
No, and in Louisiana it is prohibited. State law makes it a violation to perform both mold assessment and mold remediation on the same property, and to own an interest in both entities. A company that tests and then gets paid to fix what it finds has an interest in finding more.
Is a bigger restoration company better for mold?
Not necessarily. Large multi-service companies handle water, fire, storm and reconstruction alongside mold, which suits a large insurance loss where crews and claims experience matter. The tradeoff is depth: mold is one service among many. A mold-only company concentrates on the diagnostic half — identifying where moisture is coming from — which is what determines whether the problem returns.
Why is one mold quote so much cheaper than another?
Usually because it includes less work, and the omitted item is often containment or correcting the moisture source. Compare the written scopes rather than the totals, and ask specifically what a lower quote does not include.
Should I pay for a mold inspection or evaluation?
Many companies provide a free on-site evaluation. Paying for one generally means paying to be sold to. Paid laboratory testing by an independent assessor is a different thing and can be worthwhile when growth is suspected but cannot be located, or when a documented result is needed.