Guide
Who pays for biohazard cleanup
The person who hires the company gets the bill. After that, part or all of it can sometimes be recovered from an insurer, a victim compensation program or an estate. This page takes each in turn. It gives no prices, because only the company doing the work can.
Insurance
What to ask your insurer
Homeowner's, renter's, landlord's and auto policies are written differently, and many have exclusions. Some pay for biohazard cleanup after a death or an injury. Others do not. Nothing on this site can tell you which kind you hold.
Phone your insurer or agent before work starts, if you can. Give the date and a plain account of what happened. Then ask two things: does this policy pay for biohazard cleanup, and what do you need from me before the work is done?
Write down who you spoke to and any claim number. Keep the company's written price and its final invoice. You deal with your insurer yourself. Neither this site nor the cleanup company reached through it decides what a policy covers.
Insurers in this state are regulated by the Colorado Division of Insurance, which takes complaints from policyholders.
If a crime caused it
Crime victim compensation, district by district
Colorado runs victim compensation through its judicial districts, and the rules on cleanup are not the same in each. You apply where the crime happened, not where you live.
8th Judicial District
Larimer County: Fort Collins, Loveland, Timnath and the Larimer side of Windsor
- Crime Victim Compensation, 201 LaPorte Avenue, Suite 200, Fort Collins
- Phone (970) 498-7290
- Its published list covers medical and counseling costs, lost wages, funeral expenses and exterior doors, locks and windows. Scene cleanup is not named, so ask before relying on it.
19th Judicial District
Weld County: Greeley, Severance and the Weld side of Windsor
- Weld County Crime Victim Compensation, Greeley
- Email weldvictimcompensation
@weld.gov - Its application has a line for crime scene sanitization: professional removal of bodily fluids, tear gas or other material that leaves a home uninhabitable, where homeowner's or renter's insurance does not fully pay.
Both districts
Rules the two programs share
- The crime must have been reported to police or the sheriff.
- The victim, or the family, must have cooperated reasonably with investigators.
- By statute the fund pays last, after insurance and other sources.
- Each board sets its own limits on what it pays for each kind of cost.
- A board may waive a requirement for good cause, so it is worth asking.
- Either application can be started online at covictimcomp.org.
Rentals and estates
When the property is rented, or the owner has died
In a rental, the owner normally hires and pays the cleanup company for the unit itself and then settles with an insurer, the tenant or the tenant's estate. The lease and Colorado law decide who bears the cost in the end. The landlord guide has more.
When the home belonged to the person who died, cleanup is ordinarily a cost of the estate. If a relative pays it to get things moving, that relative should keep the invoice and proof of payment for the personal representative. A probate attorney can say how such a bill is treated.
Suicide, natural death, accidents and hoarding are not crimes, so victim compensation does not come into it. Insurance or the estate are the places to look.
Paper trail
Keep these four things
The case or report number
From the police officer or the coroner's investigator.
The written price
Dated, and listing what is removed and what is cleaned.
The final invoice and receipt
Programs and insurers pay against documents, not recollection.
A note of each call
Who you spoke to at the insurer or the program, when, and what they said.