Vendor COI · Endorsements
Property managers and GCs put endorsement requirements in vendor agreements. Spreadsheets track dates. Audits and claims care whether those requirements are evidenced on the ACORD 25. Here’s what the big three mean—and why “the cert isn’t expired” is not the same as compliant.
Dates aren’t compliance. A COI can show a future expiration and still fail: additional insured not evidenced, waiver missing, certificate holder wrong, or limits below your exhibit.
Your contract might require the vendor to name you as additional insured and grant a waiver of subrogation. That is the obligation.
The Certificate of Insurance (usually an ACORD 25) is the evidence teams actually collect before work starts. Ops teams check boxes, description-of-operations text, limits, holder name, and dates—not the full policy jacket every time.
If the box isn’t checked (and nothing in the description supports it), many exhibits treat that as a gap—even if someone “promised” the endorsement offline.
Additional insured means your entity (owner, manager, GC, etc.) is added as an insured under the vendor’s liability policy for claims that arise from their work for you. The goal is risk transfer: their coverage responds when their operations cause a loss that involves you.
After the vendor’s insurer pays a claim, subrogation is the insurer’s right to chase someone else (often you) to recover what they paid. A waiver of subrogation means the carrier agrees not to pursue you for that recovery on covered claims tied to the vendor’s work—when the endorsement and your contract line up that way.
Primary means the vendor’s policy is intended to respond first for covered claims arising from their work. Non-contributory means your insurance should not be expected to share that loss on a contributing basis as if both policies were equal primary layers—wording your exhibit may require to be shown on the cert or endorsements.
That list is what a good requirements matrix encodes. Without it, every cert is a judgment call in someone’s inbox.
No vendor portal. Trades keep emailing PDFs the way they already do. $5 per vendor / month after a free pilot.
See a sample findings report with line-item fails—including endorsement gaps—or read everything we check on an ACORD 25.
Start free 10-COI pilot →Pilot form · COI tracking for property managers
The COI is evidence of coverage at a point in time; it is not the policy. Many programs still treat missing AI/WOS/PNC indications on the cert as non-compliant with the vendor exhibit. When wording is unclear, CertLedger marks needs review instead of inventing a pass.
Often the producer listed on the cert can fix evidence faster than the trade’s field crew. CertLedger captures broker contact when it’s on the form so chase drafts can go to the right inbox.
No. We don’t sell policies or replace your broker or counsel. We encode your written vendor insurance requirements and run extract → rules → chase on the certificates you already collect.
About 10 certificates → line-item pass/fail against a pilot profile or your exhibit. Then $5/vendor/month if you keep tracking. Cancel anytime; invoice billing.
Not insurance, legal, or claims advice. Requirements and verdicts follow the matrix you (or the pilot profile) define. Spot-verify source PDFs before acting.
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