Your Florida Termite Bond Says "Retreatment Only." That One Line Is the Whole Contract.

A homeowner outside Brandon sent me two pieces of paper last week: a $265 termite bond renewal invoice she had been paying without reading for eleven years, and a $9,240 estimate to sister two floor joists and replace a section of subfloor eaten out under a guest bathroom. She assumed the first document covered the second. It did not, and the reason was six words in the contract header: Subterranean Termite Retreatment Warranty — No Repair.

That is not a scam. It is the cheaper of two products that the industry sells under the same nickname, and almost nobody re-reads which one they bought after year one. September is when most Florida renewal invoices go out, so this is the month to actually look.

Two different contracts, one word

"Termite bond" is a colloquialism. What you have is a wood-destroying organism contract, and it comes in two shapes.

Retreatment-only. If covered termites are found during the contract term, the company comes back and treats at no charge. Chemical, labor, drilling, station replacement — all covered. Damage is your problem. This is the more common bond in Florida by a wide margin, especially on contracts sold at closing or bundled with a quarterly general pest plan.

Retreat and repair. The company treats again and pays to repair structural damage caused by the covered organism, up to a cap written into the agreement. That cap is the number that matters. I have read Florida bonds with a $250,000 repair limit and Florida bonds with a $5,000 limit, and both were described to the homeowner over the phone as "full repair coverage."

Bond type	Typical FL annual renewal	What it pays when termites return
Basic retreatment-only (small home, bundled plan)	$150–$300	Retreatment labor and chemical
Standalone retreatment-only	$300–$500	Retreatment labor and chemical
Retreat and repair	$500–$800	Retreatment plus structural repair to the stated cap

The spread between the two is a few hundred dollars a year. The spread in outcomes is the $9,240 estimate above, and that was a modest claim — two joists and a subfloor patch, no wall framing, no sill plate. Once a Formosan colony has been in a wall cavity for a couple of seasons, the number does not stay in four figures.

What Florida rule actually guarantees you

Florida regulates these contracts more tightly than most states, and a few provisions are worth knowing before you argue with a renewal department.

The pest has to be named on page one. A contract for termite treatment or prevention must state clearly on the first page whether it covers subterranean termites, drywood termites, or both. This is the single most consequential line in the document for Florida homeowners, because the two are controlled by completely different methods. A liquid soil barrier or an in-ground bait system addresses subterranean colonies that forage from the ground. It does nothing about a drywood colony living inside a fascia board. If your bond names subterranean only — and most do — a drywood infestation is an uncovered event no matter how many years you have paid.

The warranty has a floor. The warranty must be issued to the owner within 30 days of the treatment date specified in the contract, and must run at least one year from that date. At each renewal, the owner has the option to extend annually after the first year for no less than four additional years. That is a real protection: a company cannot write a one-year bond, watch you file a claim in month fourteen, and then refuse to sell you year three.

The re-inspection has to produce a document. Contract re-inspections are governed by rule 5E-14.105(6). The licensee provides a signed report stating whether the covered organism is present or absent, and keeps a copy for three years. If your annual "inspection" is a technician circling the house for eight minutes and leaving a door hanger, ask for the signed reports from the last three years. What comes back — or does not — tells you what you have been renewing.

Your insurance is not the backstop

Every standard homeowners policy excludes damage from insects and vermin. Insurers treat termite damage as a maintenance failure, not a sudden loss, and Florida carriers are not in a generous mood about anything right now. So the repair exposure sits in exactly one place: the bond, or your bank account.

That is the argument for paying the upcharge. It is also the argument for reading the cap, the exclusions and the deductible on the repair side. Common carve-outs I see in Florida contracts: damage to non-structural finishes, damage that existed before the contract started (which is what the initial graph or diagram is for), damage in areas listed as inaccessible on the original inspection, and damage where a "conducive condition" was noted and never corrected.

That last one deserves attention. If the original inspection graph noted earth-to-wood contact at a porch post, or a leaking hose bib against the slab, and three years later the damage shows up two feet from that note, expect the claim to be contested. Conducive conditions are cheap to fix and expensive to ignore.

Liquid barrier and bait systems renew for different reasons

What your renewal dollar buys depends on the treatment underneath it.

Liquid barrier — a non-repellent applied to the soil around and under the structure, commonly fipronil-based like Termidor HE or an imidacloprid product. The chemistry has a useful field life measured in years, so the annual renewal is mostly paying for the inspection and the retreatment obligation. There is no monthly labor behind it. That is fine, as long as the inspection is real.

In-ground bait — Sentricon with Always Active, Trelona ATBS, or similar. Here the renewal is buying actual recurring service: stations get opened, scored, and the bait cartridges get checked and replaced. A bait renewal that costs the same as a liquid renewal but shows no station service records is a problem, because stations that are never opened are decorative.

Ask which system protects your house, then ask what the technician physically did on the last visit. For a bait system, the answer should include a station count. In Southwest Florida and along the Gulf, where Formosan pressure is highest, that station count is the difference between a monitored perimeter and a lawn ornament. Our page on Formosan termite treatment in Florida goes deeper on why that species changes the math.

Selling the house: the transfer is not automatic

A transferable bond is a genuine selling point in Florida, and it is also where coverage quietly degrades.

Most companies will transfer for an administrative fee somewhere between $50 and $250, and many require a re-inspection first. What buyers miss: some companies transfer the retreatment obligation but not the repair coverage, so a repair bond becomes a retreatment bond the day the deed records. Others restart the clock on the guarantee period. Get the transfer terms in writing during the inspection period.

And do not confuse the bond with the report. Florida real estate transactions use FDACS Form 13645, the wood-destroying organisms inspection report, issued by a licensee qualified under Chapter 482 and retained for three years. The bond says who pays if termites appear. The 13645 says what a licensed inspector observed on a specific day. Buyers should want both, and should read the inspector's graph and the "conducive conditions" section rather than just the conclusion line. The Florida termite inspection page covers what that report includes.

Five questions before you pay this year's invoice

1. Does page one say repair, and what is the cap? If there is no repair language, ask what the upgrade costs. Many companies will quote it on an existing account without a new initial treatment.
2. Which organism is named? Subterranean, drywood, or both. If you are in a coastal or older frame house and only subterranean is named, price a drywood option separately.
3. Can they email the last three signed re-inspection reports? They are required to keep them. A company that cannot produce them has told you something.
4. What did the technician physically do on the last visit? Station count for bait, probe and moisture readings for liquid. Vague answers mean a drive-by.
5. Are there open conducive conditions on my file? Fix them. A $180 downspout extension or a regraded flower bed protects a five-figure claim.

The Brandon homeowner upgraded to a repair bond for $612 a year and paid for the joist work herself. That is the expensive version of this lesson. The cheap version is fifteen minutes with the contract you already own. Start with Florida pest control for statewide coverage and licensing, check local pressure and pricing for Tampa, Orlando or Cape Coral, and the pest control hub covers how treatment methods and guarantees work across states.

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