Somewhere in every serious client contract is an insurance exhibit — limits, coverages, and wording your business must show before work starts. The certificate of insurance (COI) is how you prove it, and slow certificates genuinely lose contracts. Here’s the anatomy.
What the requirements actually say
A typical schedule: general liability $1M per occurrence / $2M aggregate; professional liability $1M per claim; workers comp at statutory limits; sometimes cyber, auto, or umbrella. Then the wording: additional insured status for the client (on GL — professional policies generally don’t offer it), waiver of subrogation, primary and non-contributory language, and 30 days’ notice of cancellation.
What’s routine vs. what needs attention
Routine: certificates showing existing coverage, additional-insured endorsements on GL, waivers of subrogation. These are same-day paperwork with an agency that handles them daily (our certificate request page exists for exactly this). Needs attention: limits above what you carry (a real coverage change — often affordable, but it must be bound, not promised), coverages you don’t have yet (cyber is the frequent surprise), and wording your carrier’s forms don’t support. The rule: never sign a contract promising insurance you haven’t confirmed — the indemnity you signed doesn’t care what your policy says.
Reading requirements before you sign
Send the insurance exhibit to your agent at proposal stage, not after award. Most requirements cost little to meet when there’s lead time; the same requirements at 4pm before a Monday start are how firms end up buying the wrong policy at the wrong price. And keep a folder of your standard COI, W-9, and endorsement list — procurement teams love vendors whose paperwork arrives complete.
Contract in hand with an insurance exhibit you’re unsure about? Send it over — reading these is the fastest favor we do.
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