If you run a contracting business, or hire one, you have handled a certificate of insurance. A general contractor asks for one before you set foot on site, the property manager wants one on file, and the request usually arrives with a deadline attached.
It is worth understanding what the document actually does, because it is relied on far more heavily than its wording supports.
It is a snapshot
A certificate states that certain policies were in force, with certain limits, on the day it was issued. That is the whole of it. It is evidence, not coverage, and it confers no rights on the person holding it.
The certificate itself says so, in the small print most people never read: it is issued as a matter of information only, and it does not amend, extend or alter the coverage of the policies listed.
What it does not tell you
It does not tell you the policy is still in force. A policy cancelled for non-payment three weeks after the certificate was issued leaves the certificate looking exactly as valid as it did on day one.
It does not tell you the coverage applies to your job. A general liability policy can exclude the specific work being done, and the certificate will not mention it.
And it does not tell you the limits are still intact. Limits are usually aggregate, meaning they are consumed across the policy year. A contractor whose certificate shows $2,000,000 aggregate may have $200,000 left by autumn after an earlier claim.
Additional insured is the part that matters
Being named as an additional insured on the policy is a substantively different thing from holding a certificate. It gives you rights under the policy itself. A certificate merely reports on it.
That status comes from an endorsement to the policy, and the endorsement wording decides what is covered, for whose work, and for how long. If a contract requires additional insured status, the endorsement is what to ask for — the certificate alone does not deliver it.
What we do about it
For our commercial clients we issue certificates the same business day, because the request usually arrives with a deadline and being slow about it costs you the job.
More usefully, we read the insurance requirements in the contract before you sign, and tell you whether your current policy actually meets them. That is much cheaper than discovering the gap after a claim, when the answer is already fixed.
If you have a contract in front of you with an insurance schedule you would rather not interpret alone, send it over and we will go through it with you.