Subcontractor Prequalification Questionnaire for GC Estimators

Most GCs prequalify subs the same way: gut feel, a phone call, and a quick check to see if they’ve worked together before. That’s not prequalification. It’s a handshake with no paper behind it. When the sub fails six months in, financials underwater, crew short-staffed, EMR nobody checked, the conversation about what went wrong always starts with the same question: did anyone actually vet this company before we signed them?

A real prequalification questionnaire is not a formality. It’s a structured way to surface the information that tells you whether a sub can actually perform the scope, at the scale you need, without becoming your problem. The questions below are organized into the four categories that matter most. Use them before bid day on any sub you don’t have direct recent experience with.

Skip Financial Health and You’re Financing Their Problems

This is the one category most GCs skip entirely, and it’s the one that creates the most catastrophic failures. A sub with thin margins and high receivables can look fine until they can’t make payroll on week six.

• What is your current bonding capacity, and who is your surety? Ask for the surety’s name and the single and aggregate limit. A sub who can’t answer this clearly either isn’t bondable or hasn’t needed to be, neither of which is reassuring on a large scope.
• Have you had any judgments, liens, or bankruptcies filed against your company in the last five years? The answer matters less than whether they’re forthcoming about it.
• Who is your primary bank, and can you provide a current bank reference? You’re not running a credit check, you’re confirming they have a real banking relationship.
• What is your typical payment terms expectation, and how do you handle cash flow gaps on long projects? A sub that needs 15-day pay apps on a public job with a 45-day owner cycle is going to be underwater by month three.
• Can you provide two trade references from projects completed in the last 24 months at a similar dollar value? References from three years ago on a $200k job don’t tell you much about their capacity on a $1.2 million scope today.

For larger scopes, request a financial statement directly. Some subs won’t provide one, and that refusal is its own answer. The SBA surety bond program is a useful reference for understanding what bonding thresholds actually signal about a sub’s financial standing.

EMR Is a Starting Point, Not a Score

An EMR above 1.0 is not automatically disqualifying, but it’s a question, not a checkbox. What matters is trajectory and transparency.

• What is your current Experience Modification Rate (EMR)? Ask for the last three years, not just the current figure. A sub dropping from 1.4 to 1.1 to 0.9 is a different story than one holding steady at 1.3.
• How many recordable incidents did you have in the last 12 months? Cross-reference this against their crew size to get a meaningful rate. Five recordables on a 200-person crew is very different from five on a crew of 12.
• Do you have a written safety program? Ask for a copy. A one-page document with no dates and no names is not a safety program.
• Have you had any OSHA citations in the last three years? If yes, what were they and how were they resolved? Willful violations are a hard stop. Administrative paperwork issues are not.
• Who is your dedicated safety officer or responsible party on the jobsite?

OSHA’s recordkeeping requirements define what counts as a recordable incident, useful if you’re comparing subs whose answers don’t align with what their EMR implies.

Right Trade, Wrong Project Is Still the Wrong Sub

A sub can be financially stable and safety-conscious and still be wrong for your project. Experience is about fit, not just history.

• What is your primary trade specialty, and what CSI MasterFormat divisions do you self-perform versus subcontract out? This matters. A mechanical sub who subcontracts their controls work is a different risk profile than one who handles it in-house.
• List three projects in the last three years that are comparable in scope type and dollar value to this project. Ask for GC name, project value, scope description, and a contact.
• Have you worked on projects of this delivery type before (design-build, GMP, hard bid)? A sub with no experience in a GMP environment will treat owner contingency like their personal float account.
• Were you ever terminated for cause or did you voluntarily pull off a project in the last five years? This is the question most subs expect you to skip. Ask it anyway.
• Do you have experience with the specific systems or materials required for this scope? Relevant certifications, manufacturer authorizations, or specialty training?

The Crew They Promise and the Crew You Get

This is the category that gets the most dishonest answers, because no sub wants to say they’re too busy. Ask in ways that make the real answer visible anyway.

• How many active projects are you currently running, and what is the total contracted dollar value in progress? A sub with $4 million in backlog and a four-person office is not going to give your $800,000 scope real attention.
• What is your current workforce size, broken down by trade and classification? Ask specifically about direct employees versus labor brokers or day labor. The answer changes the risk profile significantly.
• Do you have any anticipated crew or equipment constraints in the next 90 days? A soft question that sometimes surfaces real information if they trust you enough to be honest.
• Who would be the project foreman or superintendent on this job, and what are they currently assigned to? You’re not just buying the company. You’re buying the specific people they’ll put on your site.
• What is your lead time for material procurement on this scope, and do you have existing supplier relationships? A sub who’s never ordered at this volume, from this supplier category, in this market is going to learn on your project.

Capacity problems are the most common reason a winning bid turns into a problem job. The sub who bids your project in March may be planning to staff it with the crew finishing another job in May, if that other job runs long, you find out in June when your critical path is already compromised. Most GCs don’t ask about current backlog at all, which means they’re absorbing that scheduling risk without even knowing they accepted it.

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Run this questionnaire before bid day, not after. Discovering a sub’s EMR is 1.6 or their bonding capacity tops out at $500k on a $900k scope is useful information on Tuesday. It’s a crisis on bid day at 1:45.

For a broader look at how the bid process connects to sub selection, why your GC win rate is a selection problem gets into how qualification decisions upstream affect the outcome downstream.

Comms Center keeps your subcontractor database current with trade codes, certifications, bonding capacity, and ratings, so the information you gathered during prequalification is actually findable when you need it on the next bid. Every interaction, call, and follow-up is logged against the sub’s record automatically. Learn more at commscenter.com.