Limitations & Disclaimers

This page is a comprehensive, plain-English statement of what the Standards-Pledged Provider Program is not, what ANA's badge cannot deliver, and what risks remain on the customer's side and the contractor's side that no directory can remove. We publish this prominently because the value of an honest program depends on the customer and the contractor reading it.

Not a license

The ANA Standards-Pledged badge is not a contractor license. ANA does not issue, supplement, or substitute for any license, registration, or certification a state, county, city, or federal authority requires before a contractor can lawfully perform work. A contractor must hold every license their jurisdiction requires before lawfully taking a job. Customers should verify the contractor's license at the issuing authority's public license-search portal.

State contractor license verification portals (a non-exhaustive sample): California CSLB, Florida DBPR, North Carolina NCLBGC, Virginia DPOR, Washington L&I, Texas TDLR, Arizona ROC, Nevada NSCB, Oregon CCB.

Not a verification

ANA does not verify the contractor's claimed credentials. We do not pull state license records, do not request or validate insurance certificates, do not request or validate surety bond papers, do not run background checks, do not call references, do not verify business registration. The contractor's representations of all of these are taken on the contractor's word, in the Pledge.

If a contractor misrepresents any of these, that misrepresentation is itself a substantiable violation of Pledge #4 — but ANA is not the system that catches misrepresentations actively. The customer doing ordinary due diligence is. See for customers for the recommended steps.

Not a guarantee or warranty

The badge is not a guarantee, warranty, or insurance product. ANA does not warrant the contractor's work, does not insure the customer against contractor failure, does not back any specific outcome of the contracted work. Pledges can be broken. The badge does not protect the customer from a broken pledge — it commits ANA to the post-hoc remedies (directory removal, public revocation entry) but does not prevent the underlying harm.

Not a rating, score, or ranking

The badge is not a quality score, rating, or ranking. ANA does not score, rate, or rank Standards-Pledged contractors. Listings are alphabetical within each trade and county. Position in the directory carries no information about contractor quality. There is no "A+" tier, no "preferred" tier, no "verified plus" tier. The badge is binary: pledged or not pledged.

Not a customer-protection insurance product

The badge does not entitle the customer to refunds, damages, or restitution from ANA. ANA does not pay out claims. ANA does not maintain a customer-protection fund. The customer's remedies for actual damages are with the contractor (via direct payment, dispute resolution, or civil court), with the state licensing board (for license suspension or fine), or with the contractor's surety bond (for bond claim payouts).

ANA's role is publication and revocation. That is the entire customer-facing remedy ANA can deliver. It is intentionally narrow.

Not a marketplace, lead service, or commission engine

ANA does not sell leads. ANA does not route customer inquiries. ANA does not run an auction for visibility. ANA takes no commission on any work the contractor wins. Contractors pay $10/month for a public listing; that is the entire commercial relationship between ANA and any individual contractor.

A customer browsing the directory is not a sales lead being sold to anyone. A contractor's listing is not a customer-acquisition pipeline operated by ANA. There is no inquiry that ANA distributes, no lead-tier that contractors can buy into, no priority that comes with paying more (because contractors cannot pay more — there is no "more").

Not a substitute for written contracts, insurance, or bonding

The Pledge does not substitute for the written contract a contractor and customer should sign for any job above the smallest scope. Pledge #2 in fact requires a written contract. The Pledge does not substitute for the contractor's liability insurance, worker's comp coverage, or surety bond. Pledge #4 requires honest representation of those, and Pledge #6 requires deposit and payment-term compliance — but the underlying coverage is what protects the customer in case of accident or default, not the Pledge.

Not active monitoring

ANA does not actively monitor the contractor's day-to-day work. ANA does not inspect job sites, audit financial records, observe customer interactions, or otherwise surveil the contractor. The program is reactive: when a customer files a complaint, ANA reviews. When no complaint is filed, ANA assumes the contractor is honoring the Pledge.

This is intentional and we say so explicitly because customers sometimes assume that a "Standards-Pledged" badge implies ongoing audit. It does not. Customer-side due diligence at the time of hiring remains essential.

Not aligned with any government agency

ANA is a private US-based publisher. ANA is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or operating under the authority of any federal, state, or local government agency. The "authority" in "Authority Network America" refers to ANA's role as the publisher of an authority-network of websites covering laws and regulations — it is not a government designation.

Not affiliated with the trade associations whose names appear on this site

References to AGC, NAHB, NARI, ABC, IICRC, NACE, NEC, IRC, IPC, OSHA, EPA, FTC, CFPB, and other trade-association or government-agency names that may appear on Standards-Pledged Provider Program pages are factual references for information purposes. ANA is not endorsed by, affiliated with, sponsored by, or operating under the authority of any of those organizations.

Not legal advice or licensed-professional advice

Content on this site, including the published Standards and the contractor-services-* educational pages, describes typical practices and applicable regulations in plain English. It is not a substitute for legal counsel, licensed-trade-professional advice, accounting advice, or insurance advice. Customers and contractors should consult appropriate licensed professionals for advice specific to their situation.

Not a substitute for state complaints processes

ANA's complaints process is narrow: it determines whether a Standards-Pledged contractor failed to honor the Pledge they signed, and if so, removes the contractor from the directory. ANA's process is not a substitute for filing a complaint with a state contractor licensing board (which can suspend, fine, or revoke licenses), with a state attorney-general consumer-protection division (which can pursue cease-and-desist or civil penalties), with a state's small-claims court (which can award damages up to the small-claims cap), with civil court (which can award full damages), or with the contractor's surety bond carrier (which can pay out to harmed customers).

A customer with a substantial complaint should consider all of these channels in addition to filing with ANA. The contractor-services-complaint-process page describes the regulatory channels by jurisdiction.

Not insulated from court orders

ANA operates within US law. ANA will respond to lawful subpoenas, court orders, and law-enforcement inquiries directed to it. A court order to remove a listing or to disclose contractor or complainant data will be honored. Affected parties will be notified to the extent the court order permits.

Risks the customer accepts

Even with full due diligence and the badge in place, the customer accepts certain residual risks no directory can remove:

• The contractor's license could be suspended after the customer signs the contract but before the work is complete (a customer can monitor this through the state license-search portal).
• The contractor's insurance could lapse during the project.
• Subcontractors could deviate from the prime contractor's standards.
• Materials could be delivered incorrectly or fail prematurely.
• Acts of nature, supply-chain failures, or external events could impact the project.
• The contractor's pledge could be revoked after the customer hired them but before the work is complete (the customer's contractual remedies survive the revocation; ANA's role does not extend to mediating that contract).

Risks the contractor accepts

The contractor likewise accepts that:

• The badge does not guarantee customers — it is a directory listing, not a marketing pipeline.
• A customer complaint filed in bad faith still goes through the 30-day determination process and consumes the contractor's response window. Bad-faith complaints are dismissed but not without process.
• Substantiated complaints result in directory removal and a permanent public record.
• The Pledge text may be updated by ANA with 60 days' notice; a contractor may withdraw rather than agree to updated text.
• ANA's revenue is subscription-only, so program continuity depends on subscription continuity. ANA commits to give 90 days' notice if the program is wound down.

Limitations of liability

To the maximum extent permitted by applicable law, ANA's liability to any contractor or customer in connection with the Standards-Pledged Provider Program is limited to refund of subscription fees paid in the most recent 12 months. ANA is not liable for damages arising from any contractor's performance of work, any contractor's misrepresentations, any customer's hiring decisions, any third party's actions, or any external event outside ANA's control.

This limitation does not exclude liability for fraud or for any liability that cannot be limited by law.

Reading this page

If you are a customer considering hiring a Standards-Pledged contractor, this page should not deter you — it should clarify what the badge actually means so you can make an informed decision and pair the badge with the customer-side due diligence steps in for customers.

If you are a contractor considering pledging, this page should not deter you — it should clarify what you are signing up for so the program's modest, narrow value proposition is exactly what you wanted.

If you are reading this and you wanted a ratings agency, an insurance product, or a marketplace, this is not it. There are other services that offer those things. The Standards-Pledged Provider Program is deliberately one specific narrow thing: a public commitment to follow published standards, listed adjacent to the laws of the contractor's jurisdiction, with public revocation as the consequence for failing to honor the commitment. All of the limitations on this page exist to make sure that one thing is honest and durable.

The law belongs to the people. Georgia v. Public.Resource.Org, 590 U.S. (2020)