Subcontractor insurance requirements by trade: a practical GC guide

Common starting points by trade

The table is a conversation starter, not a substitute for an insurance exhibit. Trade name alone never tells the whole story: scope, height, hot work, occupied space, design responsibility, driving, pollution, and owner flow-downs matter.

The full trade-by-trade starter grid — eleven trades with example figures — is one of the things a demo walks through against your own vendors.

Use the table in three passes:

1. Compare it with the insurance exhibit your company already uses.
2. Ask the broker or risk advisor which scopes need a different limit or endorsement.
3. Put the adopted rule in the contract and in the review system. A number that exists only in one person’s spreadsheet is difficult to enforce consistently.

The coverage lines that need an explicit rule

Commercial general liability

Record the per-occurrence limit, general aggregate, and products/completed-operations aggregate separately. The aggregate is not a second occurrence limit; it is the amount available across covered claims during the policy period, subject to the policy. If the contract calls for the aggregate to apply per project, request the policy endorsement or schedule supporting that requirement rather than relying on a certificate description.

Automobile liability

Decide whether the requirement applies to owned, hired, and non-owned autos and whether the certificate shows a combined single limit. Driving exposure can be central for hauling, delivery, excavation, utility, and service trades even when the physical subcontract scope looks routine.

Workers compensation and employers liability

Workers compensation is normally shown as statutory, while employers liability carries dollar limits. A checked box or stated limit does not resolve whether every worker or jurisdiction is covered. Texas also permits some employers to operate without workers compensation coverage, so the reviewer may need more than the certificate when the contract requires it.

Umbrella or excess liability

An umbrella can sit above several underlying policies, but the certificate does not prove the exact follow-form terms, exclusions, or attachment points. Record the stated limit, then ask for the relevant policy or endorsement evidence when the contract makes those details material.

Professional, pollution, cyber, and other lines

These often belong to a specific scope rather than the company baseline. Design responsibility can trigger professional liability; remediation or hazardous-material work can trigger pollution; access to sensitive systems can trigger cyber. Record the named coverage, limit, deductible or retention rule, and project applicability instead of forcing these lines into a generic GL field.

Endorsements matter as much as the limits

The ACORD 25 is a summary. A certificate-holder name, a checked “ADDL INSD” box, or text in the description area does not amend the policy. If the contract requires additional-insured status, primary and non-contributory wording, waiver of subrogation, completed-operations coverage, or a per-project aggregate, request the endorsement pages or other evidence your reviewer relies on.

A practical review distinguishes three states:

• An endorsement page is attached and the reviewer can identify the form or wording.
• The certificate contains a checkbox or description, but the supporting page is not attached.
• Nothing responsive was found in the supplied file.

Those states should not collapse into one “yes” column. They tell the reviewer what was actually provided and what needs another request.

Set the rule at the level that actually changes it

Too many requirement layers create contradictions. Too few force every exception into email. A maintainable GC model uses:

1. Company default. The baseline applied when no narrower rule exists.
2. Project minimum. A project-wide floor driven by the owner contract, location, delivery method, wrap-up, or site conditions.
3. Optional vendor minimum. A standing rule for one vendor across projects or a rule for that vendor on one project.

Treat every applicable row as a minimum. For dollar fields, the highest applicable value becomes the effective minimum. For endorsements, a requirement applies if any applicable row requires it. This makes the result explainable: the reviewer can see the certificate value, the effective minimum, and which configured rows produced it.

Trade tables remain useful during risk-design discussions, but they do not need to become a permanent active matrix. Once the company decides that a particular roofer needs a higher umbrella or that one hospital project needs a higher GL floor, record that as the actual project or vendor minimum.

Project changes that deserve a deliberate override

Create a project minimum when the owner agreement flows down a higher limit, the job involves occupied facilities or unusual public exposure, the contract requires named endorsements, or a wrap-up removes coverage normally carried by subcontractors.

Wrap-ups deserve their own review. An owner-controlled or contractor-controlled program can lower some subcontractor requirements while leaving off-site, automobile, professional, pollution, or other exposures outside the program. Do not assume “enrolled” means every line disappears.

When a vendor cannot meet a minimum, do not silently lower the company rule. Record the exception, who authorized it, the project or scope it covers, and when it must be revisited. That preserves the difference between the adopted requirement and a customer decision about one subcontractor.

What to capture from each certificate

The file should preserve enough information for a later reviewer to reconstruct what happened:

• Named insured and producer contact.
• Insurers, policy numbers, effective dates, and expiry dates.
• Each stated limit as its own field.
• Endorsement evidence and where it came from.
• The company, project, and vendor minimums effective on the review date.
• The calculated difference for each field.
• Who reviewed the source, when, and what conclusion that person recorded.
• Correction requests, replacement files, and any authorized exception.

Freeze the effective requirement with the review. If the company raises a minimum in June, a certificate reviewed in March should continue showing the March rule. Otherwise an old review can appear to have used a requirement that did not exist at the time.

A setup your team can complete this week

1. Write one company baseline covering the recurring lines and endorsements.
2. Review open projects for owner flow-downs, wrap-ups, and unusual exposures.
3. Add only the project minimums that genuinely differ.
4. Add vendor minimums for documented standing or project-specific exceptions.
5. Put the adopted language in the subcontract insurance exhibit.
6. Re-review the five highest-exposure vendors against the new structure.
7. Decide who can record an exception and what evidence that decision requires.

If you need the box-by-box certificate read, use How to read an ACORD 25. If a returned certificate differs from the rule, use What to do when a COI comes back short.

Primary sources and verification tools

• Texas Department of Insurance — ACORD certificate FAQ, including certificate-holder and additional-insured limitations.
• New York Department of Financial Services — ACORD 25 and ACORD 27 opinion, explaining that a certificate summarizes coverage and does not amend the policy.
• NAIC consumer tools, including insurer, licensing, complaint, and state-department resources.
• A.M. Best ratings search for a financial-strength requirement that the ACORD 25 does not print.
• Texas Department of Insurance — workers compensation employer FAQ for the Texas non-subscriber issue.

An ACORD 25 does not print an A.M. Best rating, and a blank NAIC field is missing data, not proof of an insurer's status. Verify those items with the relevant regulator or rating source when your adopted requirement calls for them.

Where SubLien fits

SubLien reads the ACORD 25 with an AI model, returns each recorded value with the quoted source line and page, and compares the customer-reviewed record with the applicable company, project, and vendor minimums. The reviewer can replace every field before recording the customer’s conclusion.

The active requirement model is deliberately simple: company default, project minimums, and optional vendor minimums applying across all projects or to one project. Dollar fields use the highest applicable minimum; endorsements are required when any applicable row requires them. Trade, state, and contract matrices are not part of the active customer workflow.

SubLien does not decide whether coverage is adequate or whether a vendor may work or be paid. It organizes the source, the configured rule, the arithmetic, the correction request, and the named customer review. See the COI tracking software or bring one certificate to a 15-minute demo.