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A RocketLevel playbook for restoration owners and office teams, backed by decades of experience in the trade. About a 10-minute read.
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Reviewed October 2026. FTC rules, penalty amounts and state advertising laws change, and they vary by state, so use this page to know what to ask, then confirm with your state agency or an attorney before you rely on it.
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The hub teaches you to gather reviews, ask for testimonials, and build quantified case studies, because that is how you win the next job. This page covers the rules that govern doing it. The Federal Trade Commission enforces truth-in-advertising and review rules, and its 2024 reviews rule opened the door to civil penalties for conduct that used to draw only an order. The per-violation cap under Section 5(m)(1)(A) of the FTC Act is $53,088, as adjusted in January 2025, and it moves with inflation because the statutory figure is indexed. The rules line up with how an honest shop already wants to market.
Section 5 of the FTC Act declares unfair or deceptive acts or practices in or affecting commerce unlawful, and the FTC reads that to mean two things about any claim you make in marketing. First, the claim has to be truthful and not misleading. Second, and this is the part that trips up good companies, you must have a reasonable basis to back it up before you run it. The FTC calls this substantiation. An objective, measurable claim, "we cut response time to under 30 minutes," "we saved this property owner $40,000," "95% of our jobs pass the first reinspection," needs evidence in hand at the moment you publish it, not evidence you go looking for after a regulator or a competitor asks.
For restoration that means the dramatic number in your case study has to come from a real job with documentation you can pull: the file, the invoice, the Xactimate export, the dated photos. If you cannot show where a figure came from, do not print it. Round honestly, never round up past what the paperwork supports.
There is an old habit of showing your single best outcome and adding fine print that says "results not typical." The FTC's position is that the disclaimer does not cure the problem. If you feature a standout result, the audience reasonably expects something close to it, and a buried "results not typical" does not undo that impression. If your average commercial client books two meetings a quarter and one once booked nineteen, do not lead with nineteen and whisper the caveat. Either present the typical result or make the context unmistakable and honest. The cleaner move is to show the real range and let the strong number sit inside it.
The riskiest line in this trade is "we waive your deductible" or "insurance approved, nothing out of pocket." Florida is the state everyone quotes here, and two different statutes do two different jobs. Get the right one, because the wrong one is narrower than people think.
Fla. Stat. 817.234(7)(d) is the substantive ban: a contractor may not knowingly or willfully, and with intent to injure, defraud, or deceive, pay, waive, or rebate all or part of an insurance deductible on any property covered by a property insurance policy. That is a third-degree felony and it reaches commercial buildings as readily as houses.
Fla. Stat. 489.147 is the advertising statute, and its reach is roof-shaped: a prohibited advertisement is one that encourages, instructs, or induces a consumer to contact a contractor or public adjuster for the purpose of making an insurance claim for roof damage, and an ad stays outside that definition only by carrying the notice the statute actually specifies. Miss any piece of it and the ad is still prohibited.
The notice has three required statements, not two: that the owner is responsible for payment of any insurance deductible; that it is insurance fraud punishable as a felony of the third degree for a contractor to knowingly or willfully, and with intent to injure, defraud, or deceive, pay, waive, or rebate all or part of an insurance deductible applicable to payment to the contractor for repairs to a property covered by a property insurance policy; and that it is insurance fraud punishable as a felony of the third degree to file a claim containing any false, incomplete, or misleading information.
The type size carries two conditions. The statute requires a font size of at least 12 points and at least half as large as the largest font size used in the communication. The second condition is the one people drop, and it is the operative half: a 12-point notice sitting under a 48-point headline fails. Note also what the statute does not say. The word bold appears nowhere in 489.147(1)(a), which sets a point floor and a proportion, not a weight. Bold shows up later in the section, at (6)(b) and (7), on contract language, which is a different requirement entirely. Fines run to $10,000 per violation on top of licensing discipline under s. 489.129.
How other states treat the identical offer sits in their own insurance codes and contractor-licensing statutes, and we have not read them state by state. Do not run it, do not let a marketing vendor slip it into your copy, and do not let a rep say it on a doorstep. If your advertising touches insurance work at all, look up your own state's ad-disclosure requirement before the first piece prints.
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Do not print the ad or let a rep say the line until it clears this. A notice missing the second font condition or the second of the three statements is still a prohibited advertisement, at up to $10,000 per violation plus discipline under s. 489.129, and the deductible offer itself is a third-degree felony under Fla. Stat. 817.234(7)(d). What is settled here is the Florida text quoted above, read against the 2025 statute. What is not settled is your own state's version, because advertising and deductible rules are written state by state and differ in scope and in intent element. This is not legal advice. If you can't take it back once it's printed, a construction attorney in your state should see it first.
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