General information, not legal or insurance advice. Licensing, insurance and subcontracting rules vary by state and trade. Confirm yours with your state licensing board and insurance agent.
The problem
For a one-person shop, an illness or a week away has two costs: the revenue you miss and the customers who find someone else. You cannot remove either completely, but you can shrink both. The disability and savings side is covered in our health and retirement guide. This guide is about the jobs and customers.
Build a plan in four layers
1. Know what is scheduled
Keep one place where every committed job, deposit, supplier order and permit inspection lives. If someone else had to step in tomorrow, they should be able to see it. Many scheduling tools aimed at one-person shops do this and let you share a read-only view.
2. Decide your triage rules
When you are out, which work is urgent (no heat, active leak, safety issue), which can wait, and which should go to someone else? Write the list once. Put an honest message on your voicemail and booking page that tells new customers when you will respond and where to go for emergencies.
3. Line up one or two peers
The most practical backup is another independent contractor in your trade, or an adjacent one, who is also a one-person shop and in the same position. Look for someone:
- licensed for the work in your state. Handing a job to an unlicensed person can be a violation in many states and can put your own licence at risk; check your licensing board's rules, and see our licensing overview.
- insured. Ask for their certificate of insurance and, where relevant, workers' compensation proof or exemption. Do not assume your policy covers their work.
- compatible in standards and in the type of customer they serve.
4. Agree the terms in writing
Before you ever swap work, put the basics on paper, ideally reviewed once by an attorney:
- Who contracts with the customer, and who gets paid by whom. Passing work as a subcontract is a different arrangement from referring a customer to someone who contracts directly.
- Who is responsible for the work, the warranty and the permits.
- Whether the customer is told, and when. Most owners tell the customer.
- What happens to the customer relationship afterwards, and whether any referral compensation is allowed. Some states restrict paying or receiving referral fees for contracting work, and rules can differ by trade; check before you agree to one.
- How the other party's insurance and licence are confirmed.
Reciprocity is common and sensible: you cover them when they are out, they cover you.
Using TradeAtlas without overreaching
TradeAtlas provides directory and workflow features that help you find and keep track of other businesses. It does not assign work, vouch for a contractor's workmanship, or guarantee that anyone will take a job. Any arrangement is between you and the other contractor.
- The company directory (/company) lists businesses and licence records you can look up, which helps you confirm a prospective partner is licensed.
- On a claimed company profile, the Manage area's referrals tab shows referral requests sent to that company, so you can see what came in while you were away and respond.
- Your Trade Card's OnDeck area (/card/ondeck) lists referrals addressed to your card and the partners you have added.
- The subcontractor hub (/subcontractors) is research aimed at subcontractors, including the tools built for subs.
These are tools for tracking and communicating. They do not undertake a project on your behalf.
A short pre-trip checklist
- Update your shared schedule and confirm each job's next step.
- Tell your backup peer which jobs are at risk and what the customer was told.
- Turn on your out-of-office voicemail and web message.
- Confirm your partner's licence and insurance are current.
- Ask your bank to put a spending limit on any card that others can use, and decide who can sign for urgent purchases.
- Plan for illness too: a shorter list of the same steps, written once.