Read the clause covering who pays before looking anywhere near the price. Termite agreements in Florida arrive in three varieties, and the gap between two of them is the gap between a company coming back to treat and a company paying to replace a joist. Most people discover which one they signed at the worst possible moment to find out.
Re-treatment only, which is the usual one
A re-treatment only agreement commits the company to further treatment if termites turn up during the agreement period. That is the entire obligation, start to finish. No duty to repair anything attaches to it, and most of these run for one year following the initial treatment with renewal after that. It is the commonest arrangement in the industry, which is exactly why it deserves saying out loud.
None of which makes it a bad product. Re-treatment is what actually stops an active infestation, and on a house carrying no damage it is the sensible purchase. It simply does not do the thing a great many buyers assume it does.
Re-treatment together with damage repair
The second variety obligates the company to repair, replace or correct damage up to a stated amount, covering damage that occurs after the initial treatment. Two conditions come attached in practice. Not every company offers it at all, and the structure normally has to meet certain criteria to qualify, which is where conducive conditions and access walk back into the conversation.
Read both the stated amount and the start date with care. Damage that predates the initial treatment is covered by nobody at all, and a limit that sounded generous at signing may not stretch far against an entire floor system.
The third kind, which is no warranty whatsoever
An agreement may carry no guarantee or warranty at all, and where that applies, the absence has to be clearly indicated within the agreement itself. That is a perfectly legitimate option, and it turns up often enough on a one-off treatment. It only becomes a problem where the buyer believed something different, which is exactly why the rules demand it be spelled out rather than passed over in silence.
What a warranty is not, and never was
A warranty is not an assurance that termites are never coming back. It provides for corrective action as specified in the document, and nothing beyond that. Anybody presenting one as protection against the insects themselves, rather than as a defined remedy, is describing something that does not exist. The question always worth asking is what exactly happens, and who pays for which part of it, when activity turns up again.
Homeowners insurance does not fill the gap
Standard homeowners policies exclude termite damage, reasoning that it builds up gradually rather than arriving as a sudden accidental event. So the joist is not an insurance question at all, and the space between a re-treatment only agreement and what carpentry genuinely costs comes to rest on the owner. Read the language in your own policy rather than treating this as certainty about your particular one, but do not build a plan around making a claim.
Which is the practical reason the agreement type earns five minutes of proper attention. It is the only document in the pile that might ever pay for repairs.
What to check on the paper actually in front of you
Any agreement for controlling or preventing wood-destroying organisms in this state has to be in writing, and has to carry the licensee's full name and business address, the address being treated, every building the agreement covers, the date along with the period it runs, the renewal option, the common names of the organisms with termites specified as subterranean or drywood or both, whether the work treats an infestation or prevents one, the inspection intervals, the conditions triggering re-treatment and repairs, and the total maximum price stating the exact annual renewal fee. Where a re-treatment is owed, the company gets thirty calendar days from your written notice to come out and inspect, so put the notice in writing and hold onto your copy. Any seller with a wood-destroying organism report underway should also bear in mind that where treatment has been carried out, the written agreement and warranty get attached to that report.
Dealing with this in your home?
Bed bugs travel in luggage and boxes, not seasons, so Leon County calls do not slow down each winter the way ant and roach calls do. Semester turnover near Tallahassee Community College and the moving trucks along Tennessee Street give this city its own steady source of new introductions every August and January.
