Subcontractor's COI Doesn't List You as Additional Insured? Here's What to Do

You collected the certificate. You opened it. Your company name is nowhere near Box 37 or the Remarks/Description section. The subcontractor is already on-site, or about to be. This is not a paperwork formality — it is a coverage gap that puts your company on the hook for claims that the subcontractor's policy should absorb. Here is what to do, in order, without wasting time.

By Nick Streicher, Founder, StrikeDocs. Published 2026-06-29.

Why the missing AI status matters more than you think

Additional insured status means the subcontractor's general liability insurer defends you and pays covered claims arising from the sub's work — even if the sub goes out of business or disputes the claim. Without it, a bodily injury claim on your jobsite routes entirely to your own GL policy. Your premiums go up. Your limits erode. And if the claim exceeds your limits, you are personally exposed.

The certificate itself is not the policy. ACORD 25 includes a disclaimer in Box 23 (the standard "certificate is issued as a matter of information only" language) that explicitly says the certificate confers no rights on the holder. That disclaimer matters here: a certificate that lists your name in the Description of Operations box but has no underlying endorsement is worthless. The endorsement on the actual policy document is what grants coverage. The certificate is supposed to evidence that endorsement — but agents issue certificates with errors, and brokers sometimes produce them before the endorsement is actually bound.

If you are not sure what you are looking at on the form, the ACORD 25 walkthrough on this blog breaks down every box.

What 'additional insured' actually means on a COI

On a standard ACORD 25, additional insured (AI) status should show up in two places:

Box 37 — Description of Operations / Locations / Vehicles / ACORD 101 Additional Remarks Schedule: The agent types language like "[Your Company Name] is included as Additional Insured per endorsement CG 20 10 04 13 on the General Liability policy."
The endorsement itself: A physical attachment to the policy schedule — not the certificate — that names your organization or triggers blanket AI coverage.

A certificate that mentions your name in the description box without citing an endorsement form number is a yellow flag. An endorsement number with no corresponding description is another yellow flag. Both should prompt a direct call to the sub's broker.

How to confirm the AI endorsement is genuinely missing (not just hidden)

Before you escalate, verify. Certificates are sometimes produced with incomplete descriptions even when the underlying policy does carry the AI endorsement.

Step 1: Read Box 37 carefully. Look for any reference to "Additional Insured," an endorsement form number (CG 20 10, CG 20 26, CG 20 37, etc.), or your company name. If none of those appear, the omission is real.

Step 2: Check whether the sub's policy is a blanket AI policy. Some policies include blanket additional insured language — meaning any party the insured is contractually required to name becomes an AI automatically. If the sub's policy has this, the certificate should reference it (phrases like "blanket additional insured per written contract" or endorsement CG 20 38). If the agent forgot to note it, a corrected certificate with explicit language fixes the problem fast.

Step 3: Run the certificate through a compliance check. Manual reading misses things, especially when you are reviewing dozens of subs. Use the free COI audit tool to flag missing endorsements across all your active subcontractors at once — not just the one in front of you right now.

Step 4: If you find an endorsement form number, decode it. CG 20 10 04 13 is the most common scheduled AI endorsement for owners and contractors. CG 20 26 is a broader designated-organization form that some subs carry. CG 20 37 covers completed operations specifically. You need to know which form is on the policy before you decide whether it satisfies your contract. The CG 20 10 endorsement decoder and the CG 20 10 vs. CG 20 26 comparison explain the practical differences.

What we learned running 59 real COIs through StrikeDocs

This is not hypothetical. We processed 59 real certificates through StrikeDocs and measured how often required endorsements were actually present.

Additional insured status appeared in only 33.9% of policies reviewed. Roughly two out of three policies had no AI endorsement visible on the certificate. That means if you are not actively checking, you are almost certainly holding non-compliant certificates for some of your subs.
Waiver of subrogation was present on only 21.3% of policies, and primary & noncontributory language appeared on just 15.5% — the two endorsements that typically accompany AI status in a well-drafted subcontract. Missing AI is often a symptom of a broader pattern: the sub's broker produced a certificate without reading the contract requirements at all.
All 42 GL policies where limits were visible showed each-occurrence limits below $1,000,000 (median: $10,000; range: $2,500–$40,000 per the raw data extract). This points to a data quality issue in that sample — limits that low are not plausible for commercial GL — but it illustrates exactly why human review of the numbers matters. Certificates with OCR or agent errors on limit fields can sail through informal review undetected.

The takeaway: missing AI is common, not exceptional. Do not assume the sub's broker got it right without checking.

Step-by-step: what to do right now

1. Do not let work start — or stop it if it already has.

Your subcontract almost certainly conditions site access on receipt of compliant insurance documentation. If the sub is on-site without valid AI coverage in place, you are already exposed. A polite but firm email documenting the gap and requesting corrected documentation creates a paper trail and signals to the sub that this is not optional.

2. Contact the sub, not the sub's broker directly — at first.

Tell the sub what is missing and give them a deadline: "We need a corrected certificate naming [Your Company] as Additional Insured on your GL policy per CG 20 10 04 13, with our project listed in the Description of Operations, by end of business tomorrow." The sub calls their broker. The broker issues a corrected certificate. This is a routine request; any broker who handles commercial construction policies processes these daily.

3. If the sub is unresponsive, contact the broker directly.

The certificate identifies the sub's agent/broker in Box 5 (PRODUCER). Call that office, reference the named insured, and ask for a corrected certificate. Brokers will often issue corrections faster when the project owner or GC calls directly, because they know the sub's contract depends on it.

4. Get the actual endorsement schedule, not just a new certificate.

For any sub with more than minimal exposure on your project, request a copy of the AI endorsement from the policy — not just the ACORD 25. The endorsement is the legal document. The certificate is a summary. If the broker cannot produce the endorsement because the policy does not actually carry AI coverage, that is a policy change, not a certificate correction, and it takes longer to resolve (see the section below on what to do when the sub says the policy won't allow it).

5. Document the gap and your response.

Keep the original non-compliant certificate, your written request for correction, and the corrected certificate together in the sub's file. If a claim arises later and coverage is disputed, this paper trail shows you identified the deficiency and required remediation.

What to request, word for word

Here is language you can drop into an email or a subcontract exhibit. Adjust the entity names:

"Please provide a revised ACORD 25 certificate of insurance for the above-referenced project. The certificate must reflect that [Your Company Name and address] is named as Additional Insured on the Commercial General Liability policy, on an ongoing and completed-operations basis, per ISO endorsement CG 20 10 04 13 or equivalent. The coverage must be primary and noncontributory with any insurance carried by [Your Company Name]. Please include the waiver of subrogation endorsement on GL, Auto, and Workers Compensation. The project name and your contract number should appear in the Description of Operations field."

That request hits the four standard requirements in one paragraph: AI endorsement with form number, primary & noncontributory, waiver of subrogation, and project identification. If you want to generate a full requirements block tailored to your contract type, the Insurance Requirements Generator produces one in about two minutes.

Endorsement forms: which one you want and which to reject

Not all AI endorsements are equal. The form number matters.

CG 20 10 04 13 — the standard scheduled AI endorsement for owners, lessees, and contractors. Covers ongoing operations. If your subcontract requires completed-operations AI, you also need CG 20 37 04 13 (or a combined form). This is the form you will see most often; it appeared in the most certificates in our dataset.

CG 20 26 — names a designated person or organization. Broader language than CG 20 10 in some respects, but courts in some states have found it does not cover the indemnitee's own negligence. Acceptable in many contexts, but read your contract language.

CG 20 33 and CG 20 38 — blanket AI endorsements triggered by written contract. CG 20 33 applies to ongoing operations only; CG 20 38 covers both ongoing and completed operations. If the sub's policy has one of these and your subcontract is in writing, you may already be an AI without a scheduled endorsement — but the certificate still needs to reference it explicitly.

Forms to scrutinize: CG 20 10 editions older than 04 13 (2013) have narrower language. The 07 04 edition, for example, ties AI status more tightly to the sub's ongoing operations and has generated coverage disputes. If you see an older edition, note it.

For a side-by-side breakdown of CG 20 10 vs. CG 20 37 on completed operations, see the comparison guide.

What if the subcontractor says their policy doesn't allow it?

This happens. Some GL policies — particularly policies written for very small subs, or through non-standard markets — either exclude AI endorsements or charge extra for them. Here is how to handle each scenario:

"My policy doesn't have an AI endorsement available." This is a carrier restriction, not a broker mistake. The sub needs to either (a) ask their broker to add the endorsement — most standard ISO GL policies can accommodate it — or (b) obtain a policy through a different carrier that does allow it. This is your subcontract requirement, not a negotiating point. If the sub cannot obtain the coverage, you are not contractually protected and should not allow them on site.

"Adding AI coverage costs extra." That cost belongs to the subcontractor. Your contract should say so explicitly. If it does not, your next subcontract template should. Most AI endorsements on commercial GL policies cost $50–$300 per year depending on the sub's premium base — this is not a significant expense for any sub doing meaningful commercial work.

"The certificate I gave you is fine." It is not. Walk the sub or their broker through exactly what is missing using the ACORD 25 form numbers. If they push back, the issue is that they have not read your contract requirements. Send the contract exhibit. If they continue to resist, see the related post on what to do when a subcontractor refuses to provide a certificate.

"I have an umbrella policy that covers it." Umbrella policies follow the form of the underlying policy. If the GL doesn't have AI, the umbrella won't either — unless the umbrella has a standalone AI endorsement, which is unusual. Do not accept this substitution.

How to prevent this from happening on the next subcontract

The fix for one sub is a phone call. The fix for your entire subcontractor base is a process.

Put specific endorsement requirements in the subcontract. List the required form numbers. Vague language like "name us as additional insured" gives the broker room to issue a form that technically complies but does not provide the coverage you intended.

Verify before mobilization, not after. Build COI review into your pre-mobilization checklist. A sub whose paperwork is not in order does not get a key to the site. This sounds harsh until the first time you are defending a claim that should have gone to the sub's insurer.

Track expiration dates. A certificate that was compliant in January may expire in February. The AI endorsement lapses when the policy lapses. Use a tracker so you get advance notice — the COI Tracker flags upcoming expirations and missing endorsements automatically so nothing slips through during a busy stretch.

Audit your existing sub files. If you have 20 active subcontractors and you have never systematically checked AI status across all of them, run a batch audit. Given that our dataset found AI present in only 33.9% of policies, the odds are strong that you have open gaps right now on subs you have already mobilized.

For context on how AI status fits into the broader set of things a COI is supposed to evidence, the what does a COI cover post is worth reading alongside this one. And if you need to understand the difference between what the certificate says and what the policy actually obligates, the lien waiver vs. COI explainer covers why certificates are not policies.

A real extraction example

Here is a StrikeDocs compliance-check output on a COI submitted without an AI endorsement:

ISSUE: Additional Insured endorsement not found on GL policy
FIELD: Description of Operations / Endorsements
SEVERITY: Critical

ISSUE: Primary & Noncontributory language absent
FIELD: Description of Operations
SEVERITY: High

ISSUE: Waiver of Subrogation not listed on GL, Auto, or WC
FIELD: Waiver of Subrogation checkboxes / Description
SEVERITY: High

All three issues on the same certificate — which is the pattern we see most often. When AI is missing, the other two endorsements are usually missing too, because the broker produced the certificate without referencing the contract requirements at all.