Contractor data sources for insurance agents: CSLB, Secretary of State, permits, OSHA, FMCSA, Form 5500 and the vendors

Most "contractor leads" are one public record resold with a markup. This guide lists the records themselves, so a producer knows what any vendor is really selling and what is free.

Public records

CSLB licence file. The foundation. Every licensed contractor: name, classification, status, qualifier, bond surety, and the workers' comp carrier, policy number and expiration. Bulk data is public and free. Updated continuously; Birdray snapshots it weekly and keeps the history so lapses and changes show up as events. This is the only place in California where a commercial x-date is public.

California Secretary of State. Entity type, formation date, standing, officers, agent for service. Tells you whether the contractor is a corporation or an individual, who the officers are, and whether the entity is suspended by the Franchise Tax Board. Matched to the licence by name and address.

Building permits. Counties and cities publish permit data on different schedules and in different shapes; some are excellent (San Diego, San Francisco), some are PDFs. Permits matched to a licence show activity: a surge means payroll and subcontractors the policy may not reflect. Birdray carries about 419,000 permit rows matched to 8,800 licences and adds jurisdictions as they publish.

OSHA. Federal inspection data, public and free. An inspection with citations is a comp underwriting fact and a reason for a conversation about safety programs.

FMCSA. DOT numbers, power units, drivers, insurance filings for motor carriers. Contractors with fleets show up here; fleet growth is a signal the auto policy is behind. Public and free.

Form 5500. Department of Labor benefits filings: plan sponsor EIN, participant counts, and on Schedule A the benefits carrier and broker. Only larger employers file, but for them it is the best free headcount and a cross-sell map. Public, monthly.

WCIRB. The rating bureau holds the experience mod, the assigned classes and the full policy history for every California employer. Almost none of it is public. The coverage inquiry site returns one employer at a time and forbids automated use; the mod file is sold only to insurers and registered advisory organizations. Agents and brokers can look up a mod one at a time in WCIRB Connect.

Vendors

Insurance Xdate. National workers' comp prospecting database. For California, its own map says contractors and multi-state accounts only; the x-dates come from the CSLB file above. Adds experience mod, WCIRB class, FEIN, employee and sales ranges and contacts from licensed data. No premium or incumbent agency in California. Full comparison.

BuildZoom, Shovels, Construction Monitor, BuildFax. Permit-data companies. Strong on permit coverage and address history, built for contractors and lenders rather than insurers. None carry the comp record; a producer using them still needs the CSLB file for timing.

Judy Diamond, miEdge. Benefits-first databases built on Form 5500. Useful for the group side of an agency, thin on contractor P&C. Judy Diamond comparison · miEdge comparison.

Cole X-Dates, workcompxdates and similar list sellers. Resell x-dates by state, mostly from the same public records. Cheap, static, and usually without the change signals.

Firmographic vendors (ZoomInfo, Data Axle, Apollo). Contacts and headcount for companies large enough to be in their coverage, which excludes most contractors. Useful for the top of a book.

What Birdray does with all of it

Joins the CSLB file to the Secretary of State, permits, OSHA and FMCSA on the licence, refreshes weekly, keeps the history, and turns changes into dated signals: renewal in 60 days, lapse, bond suspension, new licence, permit surge, fleet growth, first hire. Then runs the outreach. The data pages on this site are the free view: by county and city, x-dates, carriers, licence classes.