Month: December 2023

Table of Contents

• What Are Blanket Insurance Requirements (AKA Annual Insurance Requirements?)
• Choosing When to Use Blanket Insurance Requirements
• Choosing When to Use Project-Specific Requirements
• Getting Started with Blanket Insurance Requirements
• Introducing Global Insurance Requirements via the Jones Procore Integration
• What Using Global Insurance Requirements in Jones Looks Like
• Getting Started with Global-Level Insurance Requirements

Blanket insurance requirements have limits and endorsements that make them applicable to ALL your projects rather than specific to one project, meaning a subcontractor only needs one set of compliant insurance documents to work on any project in your portfolio. Let’s dive deeper into what blanket insurance requirements are, how you can implement them at your GC, and how the Jones Procore integration makes managing global subcontractors simple.

What Are Blanket Insurance Requirements (AKA Annual Insurance Requirements?)

Blanket insurance requirements have limits, endorsements, and coverages that can be applied to all projects in a company’s portfolio, and use broader Additional Insured language that extends Additional Insured coverage to “all parties as required per written contract.” Rather than using project-level requirements that only allow a subcontractor to be made compliant for a single project, blanket requirements allow one COI to be marked as compliant across all a company’s projects.  This means a subcontractor only has to submit one set of COIs and endorsements to work on any project in a company’s portfolio. Not only does this simplify compliance for GC risk teams, but also means subcontractors and their insurance brokers don’t have to waste time submitting the same documents over and over for each project. 

Blanket insurance requirements can also go by different names. We frequently hear our customers refer to them as annual insurance requirements, because subcontractor documents only need to be collected once per year. No matter what you choose to call them, here’s the benefits of selectively deploying them at your company.

Why Use Blanket Insurance Requirements?

Implementing them can have a positive impact on multiple aspects of the insurance compliance process. Here’s a quick breakdown of how using them could help improve different processes at your organization.

Reduce Admin Time Spent Collecting and Reviewing COIs

Contract managers and office staff reduce administrative overhead by limiting the amount of time spent communicating insurance gaps to subs. Plus, they no longer have to spend time reviewing and organizing the same COIs. Using blanket insurance requirements also greatly reduces the amount of duplicate records a GC has to keep on file. One of our customers told us that before implementing blanket insurance requirements their internal systems were stuffed with an “overwhelming number of duplicate records.” Having dozens of copies of the same documents floating around their databases made reporting on and monitoring subcontractor compliance a huge headache.

Simplify Subcontractor Prequalification

Subcontractor prequalification can also be expedited by using blanket insurance requirements. If your subcontractor has up-to-date, compliant insurance documentation because they’re already a global subcontractor, the insurance component of the prequalification process becomes almost an afterthought. For one GC risk team, reducing the administrative overhead of prequalification means they can use subcontractors “again and again, and can get started faster” on new jobs.

Expedite the Accounts Payable Process

When issuing payments to subcontractors without blanket insurance requirements, accounting teams check compliance on project by project basis to disburse funds. This makes it significantly harder to ensure all payments go out on time and increases the likelihood of a subcontractor filing a lien. With blanket insurance requirements, accounting teams can issue multiple payments at once for all the projects a subcontractor is working on if they’re compliant with the one compliant global COI. 

Eliminate Compliance Related Friction for Subcontractors

Another big advantage is the reduction of compliance tasks for subcontractors. Subcontractors: 

• Only have to submit insurance documentation once a year
• Need to loop in their insurance brokers less frequently
• Can get started on new projects quicker

With blanket insurance requirements subs can get approved faster, get to work faster, and get paid faster. Risk managers we’ve spoken to mentioned that their subs are “eager to get set up as global subcontractors” once they’re told about the benefits of the arrangement.   

However, there are certain cases in which implementing project specific requirements is still the right approach to mitigating insurance risk. Let’s dive into how we’ve seen GCs decide when to use and when not to use blanket insurance requirements.

Choosing When to Use Blanket Insurance Requirements

There are several insurance considerations to take into account when choosing which subcontractors to use blanket insurance requirements for. Here’s some indicators that blanket insurance requirements might be a fit:

• Relatively standard project to project requirements that don’t include high-risk exceptions or exclusions
• Company uses blanket Additional Insured endorsements with “as per written contract” verbiage to confer coverage to GC/ownership
• The subs in question are either low risk trades, or have long standing relationships with the GC

While there are no hard and fast rules for when to use blanket insurance requirements, these three criteria are a good place to start when choosing which subcontractors to make global. Here’s how one of our GC customers decides which subcontractors should be put on blanket insurance requirements.

One GC Shares Their Process for Selecting Subcontractors for Blanket Insurance Requirements

We spoke to a risk management specialist at an ENR 400 GC about how her team chooses which subcontractors to roll out blanket insurance requirements to. Here’s how her decision making process goes:

1. Identify subcontractors who are already working on multiple projects
2. Ensure the subcontractor has always been responsive
3. Check if the subcontractor has a track record of being proactive and engaged on compliance
4. Ensure the subcontractor can provide a blanket Additional Insured endorsement
5. Ensure the subcontractor has an interest in working with them again

After ensuring that a subcontractor meets these criteria, the risk management specialist will reach out to them about setting up blanket insurance requirements. In general, their subcontractors have been very receptive to being made globally compliant once they’re made aware of how much administrative work they’ll be cutting out.

Choosing When to Use Project-Specific Requirements

There are, however, cases in which project-specific requirements are the correct option due to the increased risk profile of the project. These are some cases in which we’ve seen GCs opt for project specific requirements:

• Specialty coverages (like pollution) are required 
• The unique risk tolerance of a project owner means they won’t accept blanket Additional Insured endorsements
• Special exclusions (like height or scaffolding exclusions in dense urban centers like New York or Chicago) exist
• When working with small subcontractors who may have difficulty securing blanket Additional Insured endorsements for cost reasons
• When working with one-off subcontractors

Using the right mix of blanket requirements and project-specific requirements helps effectively insulate your GC from risk while simultaneously removing administrative barriers that prevent subcontractors from getting to work. How can you go about implementing blanket insurance requirements at your organization?

Getting Started with Blanket Insurance Requirements

When choosing to implement blanket insurance requirements, it’s crucial to do so strategically. Trying to suddenly elevate all of your subcontractors to global subcontractor status without considering the risk implications could result in gaps that leave your company exposed to insurance risk. We asked several GC risk teams how they went about implementing blanket insurance requirements – here’s what they shared with us. 

Shortlist Qualified Subcontractors

The risk teams we spoke to stressed that you should only roll blanket insurance requirements out to reliable and responsible subcontractors. What kind of factors should you take into consideration when choosing which subcontractors should be global?

• Subcontractor claims history
• Subcontractor insurance coverage 
• Existing relationship with subcontractor
• Inherent risk of the specific trade
• Types of projects the subcontractor typically works on (single-family homes vs. skyscrapers, etc.)

Once you’ve shortlisted your reliable, low-risk subcontractors it’s time to move on to designing a blanket insurance requirement set that is simultaneously widely applicable across your projects and specific enough to ensure you’re adequately covered in the event of a claim.

Design a Blanket Insurance Requirement Set

A well designed blanket insurance requirements set protects GCs from risk by being broad enough to apply to a variety of projects but stringent enough to provide adequate coverage in the event of a claim. Here are some trends we’ve identified from our GC customers’ blanket insurance requirement sets compared to their project-specific requirements:

• Higher average Workers’ Compensation and umbrella liability limits
  • On average, WC limits are 200 percent higher for global-level
  • On average, umbrella limits are 500 percent higher for global-level 
• Increased amount of additional GL coverages required, including damage to rented premises and medical expenses
• 100% inclusion of blanket Additional Insured requirements with “as required by written contract” verbiage in order to confer coverage to the GC, project owner, and all other required parties
• Similar or identical endorsements (Primary & Noncontributory, Waiver of Subrogation, 30 Days Notice of Cancellation, CG 2010/2037s, etc.) for GL and auto liability

As each GCs insurance needs and risk tolerance levels are different these trends may not necessarily be a fit for every company, but they provide some context as to how other GCs design their requirement sets. However, one non-negotiable component of blanket insurance requirements is the blanket Additional Insured verbiage that confers AI status to everyone who needs it.

Collect and Review Subcontractor COIs and Endorsements

Now that you’ve done all the prep work for blanket insurance requirements it’s time to get into the nitty gritty–collecting and reviewing COIs and endorsements (Struggling to review COIs for compliance? Download our COI review blueprint.) This process is one you’re probably already familiar with, and doesn’t look any different for blanket insurance requirements than it does for project-specific requirements. However, rather than being forced to address gaps on multiple COIs for one subcontractor, you only have to resolve the issues one time to get a subcontractor compliant across your projects. Once you’ve sorted out the gaps, your global subcontractor can immediately get to work on any project. During the review of endorsements ensure your subcontractor has provided a blanket Additional Insured endorsement that extends coverage not only to your GC but the project owner too.

Potential Roadblocks to Implementing Blanket Requirements

One of our GC customers shared one large pitfall with us that prevented them from fully taking advantage of blanket insurance requirements: a lack of organizational capabilities in their existing system. The COI management software they were using had no specific way to designate a global subcontractor from a project subcontractor, leaving global subcontractors “mixed in alphabetically with [their] project subcontractors.” This defeated the purpose of segmenting their subcontractors to begin with. Without the correct system or software in place, segmenting project-specific versus global subcontractors became an additional administrative nightmare. Fortunately, they found a better way to handle their blanket insurance requirements in Procore–with the Jones Procore integration.

Introducing Global Insurance Requirements via the Jones Procore Integration

When you do want to extend broad coverage to a subcontractor across your portfolio it’s easier with the Global Insurance Requirements feature from Jones. It allows Procore users to use one compliant subcontractor COI for multiple projects across their account. With this feature it’s faster than ever to get subcontractors on site, eliminating the need to collect and check the same insurance documents for different projects within one portfolio. We’ve seen that Jones customers who use Global Insurance Requirements see an average of 18% higher compliance for their trusted subcontractors as opposed to using project specific requirements.

What Using Global Insurance Requirements in Jones Looks Like

When you open the Jones Procore app, you’ll see a list of all the companies with global-level requirements. You can initiate a global-level COI Request from the Procore home screen. 

Adding a new subcontractor with Global Insurance Requirements is simple.

• Click the “Add Global COI Request” button on the upper right-hand corner. 
• From there, requesting a COI with Global-level insurance requirements is simple. You’ll just need to choose the subcontractor and select or create the set of global insurance requirements.
• Once you’ve requested a COI from a subcontractor with global-level insurance requirements, they will be visible at the bottom of all projects across your account.

It’s important to note that you can only send global-level COI requests to companies listed in your Procore company directory. It’s also important to note that all vendors with global-level insurance requirements are created as new records in a separate project within Jones.

Getting Started with Blanket Insurance Requirements

Does granting global compliance status to a subcontractor come with its own set of risk considerations? Absolutely. But in a relationship-driven industry like construction, any additional friction in the subcontractor insurance compliance process could have an impact on a GC’s bottom line. There are too many other pieces of the risk management puzzle to manage for COIs to come between a GC and a subcontractor they want to work with again and again. That’s where global-level insurance requirements come in to help reduce the amount of insurance documentation your subcontractors have to submit and your risk team has to review. And if you’re thinking about implementing global-level insurance requirements, it’s crucial to have a subcontractor compliance management tool  in place to help organize your insurance documents on a global vs. project level. That’s where we come in– get in touch with us via the form below to learn more about how Jones helps implement blanket insurance requirements with Global Insurance Requirements in Procore.