Checking a guard or a security company in Tennessee

This page is for whoever is doing the checking — a client, a property manager, a company vetting a subcontractor. It tells you what a guard and a guard company are supposed to hold in Tennessee, and walks you to Tennessee Dept. of Commerce & Insurance, Private Protective Services’s own records to confirm it.

tessura is not a Tennessee agency and issues nothing. Every link below goes to the regulator, and the regulator’s answer is the one that counts.

Getting licensed yourself instead? The Tennessee requirements, training hours, and application steps →

Check the guard

Tennessee issues a credential to the guard, so you can check the person in front of you.

What they should hold

Every guard working a postUnarmed Security Guard Registration4 hrs of training · renews every 2 years

If they carry a firearmArmed Security Guard Registration16 hrs of training · state exam · renews every 2 years

If they carry a baton, OC spray, or a taserBaton Training Card4 hrs of training

Armed work: Armed guards (21+) complete 16 hours of training including marksmanship qualification at 70%+, plus 4 hours of range training at each renewal. School assignments require 8 additional hours of active-shooter training.

Ask for the number

6 digits, e.g. 522167

Live record on search.cloud.commerce.tn.gov: LEE, AMANDA R — licence 522167, type "Unarmed Security Guard/Officer", status Active, expires 12/31/2026. Note the code in the page URL (C2741991) is an internal record ID, not the licence number.

How to check it

Ask the guard for their surname as it appears on the state card and their six-digit licence number.
Open verify.tn.gov and type the surname into the Last Name box, or the number into License/Permit Number. Lead with the name or number, not the dropdowns.
Set Board/Program to "Private Protective Services" and License/Registration/Credential Type to "Private Protective Service Unarmed Guard" or "Private Protective Service Armed Guard" to match the card, then click Search.
Never browse by board alone. Board = Private Protective Services on its own returns over 320,000 records, and adding the unarmed-guard type still returns over 239,000 — so a hit found that way means almost nothing.
Click View on your guard’s row to open the detail page, which shows licence number, rank, status, expiration date and original licensure date.
Read the Status column as the decisive field. Board-wide there are roughly four expired records for every active one, so an existing record is more likely to be expired than current. "Applicant", "Denied" and "Application Expired" all mean not licensed.

Open the Tennessee Verify a License or Credential →

Shows licence status · shows the expiry date.

If the lookup finds nothing: Tennessee Private Protective Services, (615) 741-6382; Dept. of Commerce and Insurance, 500 James Robertson Pkwy, Nashville TN 37243.

Check the company

Tennessee Department of Commerce and Insurance, Private Protective Services licenses the firm itself here. This is the check most people skip, and it is usually the more important of the two.

What the firm must holdContract Security CompanyIssued by Tennessee Department of Commerce and Insurance, Private Protective Services

How to check it

Ask the company for the exact legal name on its licence and its Contract Security Company number. A company that cannot produce a number for a licence it claims to hold has told you something.
Open the Tennessee Department of Commerce and Insurance, Private Protective Services lookup and search for that name.
Search the legal name, not the name on the uniform or the invoice. Brand names, DBAs, and the name on the truck are often not the licensed entity.
Read the status and the expiry date, not just the presence of a record. An expired or suspended licence still returns a result.
If nothing comes up, ask which entity holds the licence and in which state, then check that name. If the answer does not resolve, treat the licence as unconfirmed and call Tennessee Department of Commerce and Insurance, Private Protective Services before signing.

Open the Tennessee Department of Commerce and Insurance, Private Protective Services lookup →

Ask for insurance properly

A licence says the state let them operate. Insurance is what stands between you and a claim, and it is the easier of the two to fake — a certificate is only true on the day it was printed.

Tennessee requires it by law

$300,000 for bodily or personal injury and $100,000 property damage, with endorsements for false arrest, libel, slander and invasion of privacy, covering negligent acts of the insured and its agents in the course and scope of employment.

The certificate is filed at application and must itself provide that the insurance will not be modified or cancelled without thirty days’ prior notice to the Commissioner, so the carrier is the bound party. The company separately owes an ongoing duty to produce the certificate for inspection on demand.

If it lapses: Automatic stop-work, expressly by rule. If a licensee ceases to maintain conforming cover through modification, cancellation OR non-renewal, it "shall not provide, employ, or undertake to provide or employ any security guard and patrol service until a proper insurance certificate is filed with the commissioner." Note that a quiet downgrade below the minimums bites exactly as hard as a cancellation.

So the licence check above is worth repeating. Because a lapse here suspends the licence by operation of law rather than merely breaching a contract, a company that quietly dropped its cover after signing with you should eventually stop reading as currently licensed at the regulator. That is not instant, and a bad status has other causes, so it tells you to ask — not what happened. Re-checking costs you nothing.

T.C.A. §62-35-114; Tenn. Comp. R. & Regs. 0780-05-02-.06 — https://law.justia.com/codes/tennessee/title-62/chapter-35/section-62-35-114/

A certificate of insurance (COI) that names your business as an additional insured, not just the certificate holderCertificate holder means you were mailed a copy. Additional insured means their policy actually answers for you if you are pulled into a claim.

General liability, and workers’ compensation at your state’s statutory limitsIf a guard is hurt on your property and the company carries no workers’ comp, the claim tends to land on you. Ask for commercial auto too if they run patrol vehicles.

The policy number and the effective and expiry dates, on a certificate dated within the last monthAn undated or months-old certificate is the single most common tell. The dates let you ask the insurer about the right policy.

The name, agency, and direct phone number of the broker who issued it — then call themThe broker can confirm the policy is in force today. The certificate PDF cannot, and a forged or stale one looks identical to a real one.

A contract term requiring written notice to you before the policy is cancelled or non-renewedStandard certificates promise notice to the insured, not to you. Putting the duty on the company in the contract is what makes a mid-term cancellation a breach.

A fresh certificate part-way through the term, not only at signingRe-asking at 60 or 90 days costs you an email and defeats the whole get-the-COI-then-drop-it pattern.

tessura does not verify anyone’s insurance and has no access to insurers’ records. This is guidance for doing it yourself, not a statement about any company on this site. It is also not legal advice — for a contract of any size, have your own counsel or broker set the limits.

Where this comes from

Tennessee requirements last reviewed August 28, 2026. Some details on this state are still pending a second check against the primary source. Rules change — the regulator’s page is authoritative if it disagrees with ours.

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