ACORD 25 Certificate of Insurance Explained

The ACORD 25 is the single page that stands between your project and an uninsured loss. If a subcontractor hands you one and you file it without reading it, you are not managing risk — you are creating a paper trail that will look bad in court. This post walks through every material section of the form, explains what each field actually tells you, and shows where the common failure points are.

By Nick Streicher, Founder, StrikeDocs. Published 2026-04-16.

What Is the ACORD 25?

ACORD stands for Association for Cooperative Operations Research and Development. It is a nonprofit standards body that publishes standardized insurance forms used across the industry. The ACORD 25 — formally titled "Certificate of Liability Insurance" — is the industry's standard summary document that an insured's agent issues to a third party (the certificate holder) to evidence that certain insurance policies exist.

Key word: evidence. The ACORD 25 is not a policy. It does not grant coverage. It does not create, extend, or alter the underlying insurance contract. That disclaimer is printed verbatim at the top of every current version of the form. Despite that, GC offices routinely treat an ACORD 25 as proof that a sub is covered for the work at hand. It is proof of nothing beyond the fact that a policy existed as of the date of issuance — and even that is conditional on the agent having accurate information.

ACORD publishes the form and updates it periodically. The current version in wide circulation is the 2016 edition. You will still see older versions — 2009, 2010 — in the field, and some carriers or agencies are slow to update their templates. The version matters less than the content, but if you are receiving a 2003-edition form in 2026, that is a signal the agency's systems are not current.

For a detailed walkthrough of how to physically read the document layout, see How to Read an ACORD 25.

The ACORD 25 Form, Field by Field

Producer

This is the insurance agency or broker that issued the certificate. It is not the insurer. If there is a dispute about the certificate's accuracy, the producer is your first call. Their name, address, phone, and sometimes a contact name appear in the top-left box. In practice, this box is often populated with a generic agency address and no direct contact — file it anyway and get a direct email from the agent when you collect the COI.

Insured

The named insured on the underlying policies. This must match exactly the legal entity you have a contract with. "ABC Plumbing" and "ABC Plumbing LLC" are different legal entities. If your subcontract is with the LLC and the COI shows the DBA, the coverage question becomes murky the moment there is a claim. Verify the entity name against your contract and, if needed, the sub's secretary of state filing.

Insurer(s) Affording Coverage / NAIC

The ACORD 25 has columns for up to five insurers (A through E), with a corresponding NAIC number for each. The NAIC number is how you verify the carrier is licensed in your state and is financially solvent. The National Association of Insurance Commissioners maintains a public lookup at https://www.naic.org/ — cross-reference the NAIC number there. An unlicensed or non-admitted carrier may not be collectible in your jurisdiction without surplus lines filings, which is a separate compliance issue.

Coverages Section

This is the meat of the form. Each row represents a policy type. The standard policy types you will see on a construction COI are:

Commercial General Liability (CGL). The most important line for most GCs. Look at the policy number, effective and expiration dates, and the limits. The standard limit boxes are:

Each Occurrence
Damage to Rented Premises
Med Exp (Any One Person)
Personal & Advertising Injury
General Aggregate
Products-Comp/Op Aggregate

Your subcontract should specify minimum required limits for each of these. The most commonly negotiated figures are Each Occurrence ($1M is industry standard for most trades) and General Aggregate ($2M). Check the policy type checkboxes — Claims-Made vs. Occurrence matters significantly. A claims-made policy only covers claims filed during the policy period; an occurrence policy covers events that happened during the policy period regardless of when the claim is filed. For construction, you want occurrence-based CGL.

Automobile Liability. Covers owned, hired, and non-owned autos. If your sub's workers drive personal vehicles to the site, "non-owned" coverage matters. Check all three boxes are checked: Any Auto, or at minimum Hired Autos and Non-Owned Autos.

Umbrella / Excess Liability. The umbrella sits above the underlying GL, auto, and sometimes employer's liability. Confirm whether it is an "Umbrella" (which has its own retention and broad-form coverage) or "Excess" (which simply follows the form of the underlying). This distinction matters when the underlying policy has an exclusion — an umbrella may have independent insuring agreements that fill gaps; excess usually does not.

Workers' Compensation and Employer's Liability. WC limits in the ACORD 25 are the Employer's Liability sublimits (bodily injury by accident, bodily injury by disease policy limit, bodily injury by disease each employee). The statutory WC obligation itself does not have a dollar limit — it is whatever the state mandates. The Employer's Liability portion is the limit for suits that fall outside the exclusive remedy bar. Standard is $500K/$500K/$500K or $1M/$1M/$1M on larger projects.

Professional Liability / E&O. Less common in trade subcontracts but standard for design-build, MEP engineers, and specialty consultants. Note that professional liability is almost always claims-made.

For a broader explanation of what each policy type covers in practice, see What Does a COI Cover.

The Endorsements Section: Where the Real Risk Lives

The bottom half of the coverages section includes a free-text "Description of Operations / Locations / Vehicles" box. This is where endorsements, additional insured status, waivers of subrogation, and project-specific language appear — or fail to appear.

Additional Insured

Your contract almost certainly requires the sub to name you (and possibly the owner) as an Additional Insured on their CGL. Being an Additional Insured means the carrier defends and indemnifies you under the sub's policy for covered claims. The ACORD 25 should confirm AI status and ideally reference the specific endorsement form number.

The two most common endorsements are:

CG 20 10 — covers ongoing operations
CG 20 37 — covers completed operations

You typically need both. CG 20 10 alone does not cover you after the sub's work is finished, which is exactly when latent defects surface.

Here is an example of what StrikeDocs extracts from the description box when the endorsement is present:

{
  "policies": [
    {
      "type": "GL",
      "each_occurrence": 1000000,
      "general_aggregate": 2000000,
      "endorsements": [
        "CG 20 10 04 13 - Additional Insured - Owners, Lessees or Contractors - Scheduled Person or Organization",
        "CG 20 37 04 13 - Additional Insured - Owners, Lessees or Contractors - Completed Operations"
      ]
    }
  ]
}

When that endorsement block is absent — or when only CG 20 10 is listed — StrikeDocs flags a compliance gap.

Waiver of Subrogation

If your sub's carrier pays a claim that was partly your fault, the carrier has the right to sue you to recover what it paid (subrogation). A Waiver of Subrogation endorsement prevents that. Your contract language should require it; the COI should confirm it. Look for language like "Waiver of Subrogation applies in favor of [your company name]" in the description box, or a checkmark in the WOS column if the COI template includes one.

Primary and Non-Contributory

If you carry your own GL and there is a claim that implicates both your policy and your sub's policy, insurers will argue over which policy pays first and how much each contributes. A Primary & Non-Contributory endorsement on the sub's policy means the sub's coverage pays before yours is touched. Without it, your carrier may pay a share of a loss caused by your sub's work, which drives up your loss history and ultimately your premiums.

Notice of Cancellation

The standard ACORD 25 language says the issuing insurer "will endeavor to" provide 30 days' notice of cancellation (10 days for non-payment). "Will endeavor to" is not a guarantee. If your contract requires guaranteed 30-day notice, the sub needs an endorsement that actually obligates the insurer to provide it — not just an agent promise.

Certificate Holder

The bottom-right box names the certificate holder — the entity receiving the document. This should be your legal entity name and address. The certificate holder is not automatically an Additional Insured; those are separate fields. A surprisingly common error: the description box names the correct AI, but the certificate holder box has a different or misspelled entity. They can coexist as different parties, but often it signals the agent copy-pasted from a prior certificate without updating.

What We Learned Running 59 Real COIs Through StrikeDocs

We processed 59 real certificates of insurance through StrikeDocs across a range of construction projects and states. Here is what the data shows:

Only 33.9% of policies carried an Additional Insured endorsement. That means on roughly two-thirds of policies, the certificate holder has no direct claim against the sub's carrier. If your compliance checklist is "did we receive a COI," you are missing AI status on most of your subs.
Only 21.3% of policies included a Waiver of Subrogation. Even on projects where the subcontract explicitly required WOS, the endorsement was absent the majority of the time. This is the most commonly overlooked requirement in the description box.
Only 15.5% of policies showed Primary & Non-Contributory language. This is the least-requested and least-received of the three standard endorsements — and the one most likely to cost you money quietly, through increased loss experience on your own policy, rather than through an obvious coverage denial.
Average policies per COI: 2.9, with 69.5% of documents carrying two or more policies. Most COIs are not single-line documents. Reviewing a COI means reviewing multiple policy rows, each with its own limits, dates, and endorsement requirements.
GL was the most common policy type (47 of 59 documents, 27.0% of all policies), followed by WC (37 policies, 21.3%) and Auto (35 policies, 20.1%). Umbrella appeared in only 25 policies (14.4%). If your contract requires umbrella coverage, check explicitly — a significant share of COIs arrive without it.
The CG 20 10 04 13 endorsement was the most frequently cited AI endorsement, appearing 7 times across the corpus, but CG 20 37 (completed operations) was rarely paired with it. Ongoing-ops AI coverage without completed-ops coverage is a structural gap for any project with a latent defect exposure.

These numbers are not edge cases. They are the baseline. Manual review of a COI by a GC office manager is unlikely to catch the WOS and P&NC gaps because they require reading the description box carefully and knowing what endorsement language should be there — not just confirming that limits meet minimums.

Common Errors That Slip Past Manual Review

Expired policies. The effective and expiration dates on each policy row are the dates of the underlying policy — not the date the COI was issued. A COI issued today can show a policy that expired three months ago. Always check that the policy expiration date is after your project's expected completion date, not just after today's date.

Wrong entity as named insured. As noted above, entity name mismatches are common and legally material. DBAs, trade names, and LLC suffixes all matter.

Claims-made GL without a retroactive date or tail. If a sub carries claims-made CGL, the retroactive date must predate the start of their work on your project. If they cancel or switch policies, they need a reporting tail (extended reporting period) that covers the statute of repose in your state — often six to ten years for construction defects.

Umbrella that does not follow form. Some excess policies explicitly exclude certain underlying coverages. If the umbrella policy excludes employer's liability or auto liability, the apparent high aggregate limit is misleading.

Description box language that references a different project or owner. Agents sometimes update limits but forget to update the project-specific language in the description box. The AI named in the box may be the previous certificate holder.

Policy numbers that don't match across the form. If a sub provides both an ACORD 25 and a separate endorsement copy, verify the policy numbers match. An endorsement on policy 12345 does not help you if the ACORD 25 shows policy 67890.

How to Request a Corrected COI

When you find a deficiency, the request goes to the sub's agent — not the sub. The sub cannot correct the COI; only the agent who issued it can reissue. Your request should be specific:

State the deficiency by field name and required value. "The GL policy expiration date shows 03/01/2026. Our project extends to 12/31/2026. Please reissue with a policy in force through project completion or a binding commitment to renew."
Reference your contract section that specifies the requirement.
Set a deadline. "We need the corrected certificate by [date] or we will pause work authorization for this sub."
Request a copy of the actual endorsement page — not just a COI that claims the endorsement exists. The ACORD 25 is a summary. The endorsement form is the operative document.

Do not accept verbal assurances that coverage exists. Do not accept a COI that says "endorsement attached" if no endorsement is actually attached. The claim adjuster will not accept those either.

For projects with 20 or more active subs, manual collection and review of COIs at this level of detail is not sustainable. StrikeDocs extracts the structured data from each certificate, checks it against your contract requirements, and flags gaps — so your office manager is reviewing exceptions, not reading every description box manually.