Key takeaways
- A contractor who will not put the trigger depth in writing is keeping the right to decide when you were due.
- No certificate of insurance means any injury or damage on your property can become your problem.
- Michigan has no statewide snow plowing license, so “licensed” on a truck tells you little. Insurance is the credential that counts.
- Surcharges that appear after a storm are the most common billing complaint in the trade.
The 12 red flags
1. No trigger depth in writing. If nobody will say what depth sends a truck, nobody can be held to it. "We come when it snows" means "we come when we decide it snowed enough."
2. No certificate of insurance. A legitimate contractor can email a certificate in minutes. Hesitation usually means there is no policy, or it lapsed, or it is in a different name.
3. Vague claims about being "licensed." Michigan does not issue a statewide license for snow plowing. A few cities license snow contractors locally, but most of the time the word on a truck tells you nothing specific. Ask for insurance, which you can actually verify.
4. Cash only, no invoice. Cash-only operations tend to have no records, which means no way to prove what was done, and no paper trail if something is damaged.
5. A full season paid up front with no written agreement. Prepaying a season is not unusual. Prepaying it with nothing in writing about the trigger, the dates and what happens if they stop showing up is how people lose a winter's budget in January.
6. "We will figure out the price once we see how the season goes." Pricing should be set before the season, from something measurable like driveway size. A number that depends on how busy they get is a number that goes up.
7. Surcharges that appear after the storm. Fuel surcharges, storm surcharges and "heavy snow" add-ons are legitimate only if they were in the agreement before the snow fell. Ask the question directly. Our answer is that we do not charge them.
8. No answer to "what if your truck breaks down?" Equipment fails in every storm season. The red flag is not the breakdown, it is having no backup plan at all.
9. They take everyone who calls, anywhere. A company with no limit on new customers has no limit on how late its route runs. Good companies sometimes say no.
10. No plan for where the snow goes. By February, the easy piles are full. A contractor who has never thought about it will pile snow on your lawn edge, over a drain or across your sight line at the road.
11. A voicemail that is always full. Try calling during business hours in the fall. If nobody answers when it is not snowing, nobody will answer when it is.
12. They cannot tell you whether you were cleared. Ask how they record finished stops. If the answer is the driver's memory, missed visits will be invisible to everyone but you.
What the green flags look like
| Red flag | Green flag |
|---|---|
| No written trigger | A trigger in inches, in the agreement |
| No insurance paperwork | A certificate before work starts |
| Price "depends on the season" | Pricing from measured square footage, published or clearly explained |
| Surprise surcharges | A written yes or no on surcharges |
| Voicemail full | A text line a person reads, and a phone that is answered in storms |
| No records | A recorded completion time for every stop |
A note on the cheapest bid
The lowest bid is not automatically a red flag. Some companies are simply efficient, or have a dense route on your street. But if the lowest bid also has two or three of the flags above, the savings are usually paid back in missed workdays, shoveling and a mid-season scramble for a new company.
For the full list of questions to ask, see 15 questions to ask a snow removal company.
Sources
- East Grand Rapids city code, snow removal contractor license — an example of a Michigan city that licenses snow contractors locally
Written by the Macomb Lawn & Snow Solutions team in Macomb Township, Michigan. We plow and salt homes and businesses across all 26 Macomb County communities, November 15 to April 15. Published September 28, 2026. About us · How we research these guides · How our dispatch works