Three different authorities show up in this trade, and they are easy to confuse, because each of them can tell you no. Insurance Code § 6002.051 sets out the first two in two sentences: the department administers the chapter, and the commissioner may adopt rules as necessary to administer it, including rules the commissioner considers necessary to administer it through the state fire marshal. That is the whole chain of authority. The rules the commissioner adopted are published as Title 28, Part 1, Texas Department of Insurance, Chapter 34, State Fire Marshal — and 28 TAC § 34.602 gives them the name they are known by, the Fire Alarm Rules. So the department holds the statutory duty, the commissioner writes the rules, and the state fire marshal is who a registered firm actually deals with. Under 28 TAC § 34.625 the state fire marshal or a representative may investigate registered firms for compliance, either on a written complaint from any party or on the department’s own motion.

The third authority is local, and the shape of it is worth holding before the detail: local government cannot license you, and can still govern what you build. Insurance Code § 6002.003 draws that boundary in an unusually direct way. The chapter and the rules adopted under it have uniform force and effect throughout the state; a municipality or county may not enact an ordinance or rule inconsistent with them, and an inconsistent one is void and has no effect. The statute then names what a political subdivision — a unit of local government, such as a city or a county — specifically may not require of a registered firm, a license holder, or a license holder’s employee as a condition of doing business: a registration, franchise, or license from the political subdivision, any fee or franchise tax to it, or a posted bond. It may not impose qualification or financial responsibility requirements beyond proof of a registration certificate, and it may not require a business location or residency inside its own boundaries.

None of that makes a city irrelevant, which is the half people miss. The same section preserves real local authority: a municipality or county may mandate that a fire alarm or detection system be installed in certain facilities where the installation conforms to state law, may require a better type of system or an otherwise safer condition than the state minimum, and may require regular inspections by local officials of smoke detectors in dwelling units. It may require a registered firm to obtain a permit and pay a permit fee for an installation, and to install in conformance with its building code and other construction requirements as well as state law. It may even require, by ordinance, that a firm telephone a monitored property before reporting an alarm signal to the city or county. The pattern to carry forward is that local government cannot license you, and can absolutely still tell you what to build and make you pull a permit to build it. Chapter 2 works through the boundary in full; Chapter 11 covers what happens when an investigation finds noncompliance.