Certificate of Insurance: What to Require From a Vendor

Most people asking a cleaning vendor for a certificate of insurance are checking a box. The certificate arrives, it has a logo and some numbers, it goes in a folder, and nobody reads it.

Then a crew member falls in your stairwell, or a mop bucket takes out a client’s laptop, and the folder gets opened for the first time. This is a ten-minute skill worth having before that day.

What the document is

An ACORD certificate is a summary produced by an insurance broker showing what policies exist on a given date. It is evidence, not a contract. It confers no rights on you by itself. That last sentence is printed on the form, and it is the reason the endorsement question below matters.

The four fields to read first

1. Named insured. Does the legal entity on the certificate match the entity on your contract and your invoices? Cleaning companies frequently operate under a DBA. If the certificate names one entity and the contract names another, you are holding proof of insurance for a company you did not hire.

2. Policy dates. Both start and expiry. A certificate expiring in six weeks is a task, not a reassurance. Diary the expiry and request the renewal before it lapses.

3. Coverage lines and limits. At minimum you want:

Line	What it covers	Common requirement
General liability	Damage to property, third-party injury	$1M per occurrence / $2M aggregate
Workers’ compensation	Injury to the vendor’s own staff	Statutory
Bonding	Theft by an employee on your premises	Varies by contract
Auto liability	Vehicle incidents on site	If they drive to you, yes

Workers’ compensation is the one people forget and the one that protects you most directly. If a cleaner is injured in your building and their employer has no workers’ comp, the injury has to go somewhere, and it will look for your policy. This is also the practical reason to ask whether the crew are W-2 employees or subcontractors: subcontractors are usually not on the vendor’s workers’ comp at all.

4. Description of operations, and whether you are listed. Which brings us to the field that actually matters.

Additional insured is not the same as being named

Being listed in the certificate holder box means the broker mailed you a copy. That is all it means.

Being an additional insured means the policy itself has been endorsed to extend coverage to you for liability arising out of the vendor’s work. That protection comes from an endorsement form attached to the policy, not from the certificate.

So the request is: “Please have your broker add us as additional insured and send the endorsement.” If a vendor sends back a certificate with your name in the holder box and calls it done, ask again. A vendor whose broker cannot produce an endorsement is telling you something.

Buildings know this. Most downtown Austin high-rises will not badge a cleaning crew in until a certificate naming the building owner and the management company as additional insured is on file, and that approval takes days. Start it before you need it, not the week you want the crew to begin.

Waiver of subrogation

The other endorsement worth knowing. Without it, the vendor’s insurer can pay a claim and then come after you to recover it. A waiver of subrogation in your favour blocks that. Ask for it in the same email as the additional insured request; it is a routine thing for a broker to add.

How to verify it is real

A certificate is a PDF and PDFs are editable. If the vendor is new to you and the contract is meaningful, verify:

• Ask for the certificate to be sent directly from the broker, not forwarded by the vendor. This is standard and no honest vendor objects.
• Call the producer listed on the form. The broker’s name and phone are on the top-left of every ACORD.
• Check that the policy numbers are populated. Blank or placeholder policy numbers are a hard stop.

What to write into the contract

Do not rely on a one-time certificate. The contract clause should say:

• Minimum limits by line, stated in figures
• Additional insured status for you and, where required, your landlord
• Waiver of subrogation
• Thirty days’ notice of cancellation or material change
• A renewal certificate delivered before each expiry
• Vendor staff are W-2 employees covered under the vendor’s workers’ compensation

That last line quietly does more work than the rest. It closes the subcontractor gap that most of these documents leave open.

Our position

We carry $2M general liability, workers’ compensation and bonding, our cleaners are W-2 employees rather than subcontractors, and we send a certificate on request — including directly from the broker, and including the additional insured endorsement your building will want. If a building requires it before access, tell us at the walkthrough so the paperwork runs in parallel with the scope instead of after it.