Why “Additional Insured” on a COI doesn’t equal coverage

A COI is a collection document, not a risk transfer instrument. The endorsement is. A COI can reference Additional Insured status without proving the endorsement actually grants it, or grants it in the way your agreement requires.

The certificate itself puts you on notice: the ACORD 25 includes a disclaimer stating that the certificate is issued as a matter of information only and confers no rights upon the certificate holder—and cannot amend, extend, or alter the coverage afforded by the policies. The carrier has no obligation to recognize Additional Insured status unless the actual policy and endorsements confirm it.

What’s in those documents determines whether a claim is covered or denied—and whether risk transfer holds up when it matters.

Common Failure Points

The 5 Additional Insured gaps that cause the most surprises

These are the issues that most often turn a “compliant” file into a coverage dispute.

1
Blanket vs. scheduled Additional Insured endorsements

Many teams expect blanket additional insured language: if a written contract requires it, status applies automatically. It’s scalable and common in large programs.

But you’ll still see policies where the COI reads like blanket coverage, while the endorsement is scheduled—meaning it only applies if the entity is specifically named. There’s also a subtler version of this trap: blanket language can appear inside a schedule box, where instead of naming specific entities, the endorsement refers broadly to “any person or organization as required by written contract.” The presence of a schedule doesn’t automatically mean it’s a scheduled endorsement—the actual wording determines how coverage applies.

What to do: When you require blanket status, read the endorsement wording—don’t assume a schedule box means scheduled coverage, and don’t rely on the COI description alone.

2
Ongoing vs. completed operations (the expensive miss)

A lot of serious claims show up after the work is done. That’s why many construction contracts require additional insured status for both ongoing operations (work in progress) and completed operations (after the work is finished).

The common form pairing is CG 20 10 (ongoing) and CG 20 37 (completed). But the CG 20 26—labeled for ongoing operations—contains broad language that may cover completed operations as well, and is often accepted for both. The catch: if there’s a separate completed operations exclusion elsewhere in the same endorsement, that broad language gets overridden. Always check for conflicting exclusions before accepting a single form for both.

More generally, if an endorsement uses language like “arising out of your work” or “your operations” without limiting it to a time period, it may be acceptable for both—but that requires reading the full text, not just the title.

What to do: Confirm which time periods the endorsement actually covers. Don’t rely on form names or COI summaries—check for completed operations exclusions even when the wording looks broad.

3
“Required in a written contract with you” (the contractual trigger problem)

Many endorsements—especially blanket ones—condition additional insured status on a written agreement, sometimes specifically a written contract “with you.” That privity requirement can create unintended gaps in multi-tier construction projects.

Owners often don’t have direct contracts with subcontractors; they contract with the GC. If the endorsement requires a contract “with you,” the owner may not qualify as an additional insured—even if the GC does. This is one of the most common ways upstream parties get left out despite everything looking compliant on paper.

What to do: Confirm whether the endorsement language requires privity (“with you”) and whether your program structure relies on coverage flowing to parties who may not have a direct contract with the named insured.

4
Entity-name mismatch (the technicality that breaks coverage)

Your contract requires ABC Painting LLC. The COI lists ABC Painting Inc. The project team moves on. But entity mismatches don’t disappear—they resurface when endorsements schedule parties by name, or when a claim handler is looking for a reason to deny coverage.

What to do: Standardize legal entity naming across contract templates and requirement sets, then enforce consistent matching in your verification workflow.

5
Broad wording that looks sufficient but isn’t (the fine print problem)

Some endorsements use language that appears to cover everything—”arising out of your work,” “your operations,” no time restrictions—but contain restrictions buried further in the text. A completed operations exclusion on page two can quietly undo the broad language on page one.

This is exactly where workflows that stop at extraction fail. OCR can pull the broad phrase; it can’t reliably cross-reference it against exclusions buried in endorsement schedules or multi-page policy documents.

What to do: Treat broad wording as a starting point, not a conclusion. Confirm there are no conflicting exclusions before accepting an endorsement as meeting your requirements.

Why It Matters

Additional Insured Enforcement: The Step Most “COI Tracking” Workflows Skip

Most teams don’t lose Additional Insured protection because they forgot to collect a COI. A green dashboard can make compliance look like protection—and Additional Insured is one of the easiest places for that illusion to hold.

A COI might say “Additional Insured per attached endorsement.” But the endorsement itself may not grant status at all—or may grant it only under conditions that don’t match your contract.

That’s why the real standard for Additional Insured isn’t “we have the COI.” It’s verifying the endorsement—who is granted status, when it applies (ongoing vs. completed ops), what contract language triggers it, and whether any limitations undermine your requirement.

If Additional Insured is a contractual requirement you’re counting on, treat it as something to verify and enforce, not something to collect and record. The COI is the starting signal. The endorsement is the finish line.

Practical Process

A verification checklist: what to request and what to confirm

What to request

  • COI package (ACORD 25 + any certificate schedules)
  • Additional insured endorsement(s)—not just “referenced”

What to confirm

  • Endorsement grants status to the right parties
  • Applies to ongoing and completed operations, if required
  • Contractual trigger doesn’t exclude upstream parties
  • Entity names match across contract, COI, and endorsements

COI tracking tools help you collect paperwork. Real risk management is verifying what that paperwork can’t prove—endorsements, triggers, and exclusions that decide whether risk transfer works when it’s time to pay.

How to verify at scale without creating a manual bottleneck

Verification gets hard because it’s high-volume and high-variance—not because each case is intellectually difficult. The approach that holds up operationally is:

1
Fast intake: Collect COIs and required documents consistently, without manual chasing.

2
Rules-based checks: Flag what’s missing and what doesn’t match requirements before anyone reads a single page.

3
Endorsement interpretation for the subset that needs it: High-risk scopes, exceptions, nonstandard forms—where human judgment matters most.

Avoid both extremes:

“COI-only and hope”—accepting documents without verifying endorsement language
Manual review of everything—an unsustainable bottleneck at volume
Structured standards defining acceptable language and forms
Consistent exception handling so review effort is predictable

Make your requirements verifiable

If you want fewer surprises, reduce ambiguity in your program requirements:

  • Which Additional Insured endorsement language and forms you accept
  • Whether you require ongoing and completed operations
  • How you handle contractual trigger language (“with you”)
  • Exact legal entities to be named

That’s how “Additional Insured” stops being a checkbox and becomes a requirement you can verify—consistently, at scale, and in a way that holds up when the claim hits.