Carrier & Underwriting

Additional Insured

An additional insured is a person or organization — other than the named insured — who is added to a commercial insurance policy to receive liability coverage under that policy. Additional insured status is granted through an endorsement, most commonly on a commercial general liability (CGL) policy, and protects the additional insured against claims arising from the named insured's work or operations.

Why Additional Insured Matters for Independent Agents

Additional insured requests are one of the most frequent service tasks in any commercial insurance agency. Virtually every contractor, vendor, or tenant relationship involves one party requiring the other to add them as an additional insured. A general contractor hires a plumber — the GC requires the plumber to add them as an additional insured on the plumber's CGL policy. A landlord leases space to a retail tenant — the landlord requires the tenant to add them as an additional insured. A corporation hires a marketing consultant — the corporation requires additional insured status on the consultant's policy.

For agents and CSRs, the workflow looks like this: the insured calls or emails with a contract that requires additional insured status, the agent reviews the contract language to determine which endorsement form is needed, the agent requests the endorsement from the carrier, and then the agent issues a certificate of insurance (COI) showing the additional insured. This sequence can happen dozens of times per week in an active agency.

Getting additional insured endorsements wrong creates real E&O exposure. If a client's contract requires ongoing operations coverage but the agent only adds completed operations, the additional insured has a gap. If the contract specifies "primary and non-contributory" language but the endorsement doesn't include it, the additional insured's own policy gets dragged into claims. These are the kinds of details that show up in E&O lawsuits against agencies.

How Additional Insured Works

The ISO (Insurance Services Office) publishes several standard additional insured endorsement forms, each covering a different relationship and scope:

In practice, most contracts require both CG 20 10 and CG 20 37, often referred to together as "ongoing and completed operations" coverage. Many carriers — including Hartford, Progressive Commercial, and Hiscox — offer blanket additional insured endorsements that automatically extend additional insured status to any party the named insured is contractually required to add, eliminating the need for individual endorsement requests.

When processing additional insured requests, agents should verify three things from the underlying contract: (1) does the contract require "primary and non-contributory" status, which means the named insured's policy must pay first before the additional insured's own coverage responds; (2) does the contract require a waiver of subrogation, which prevents the named insured's carrier from seeking recovery from the additional insured; and (3) does the contract require completed operations coverage in addition to ongoing operations.

The cost of an additional insured endorsement varies by carrier and form. Blanket additional insured endorsements are often included at no charge on CGL policies from carriers like biBERK and NEXT Insurance. Scheduled endorsements naming a specific additional insured may carry a $25-$75 charge per endorsement at some carriers. The endorsement itself does not increase the policy limits — the additional insured shares the named insured's existing limits.

Once the endorsement is in place, agents issue a certificate of insurance showing the additional insured in the certificate holder section, with the endorsement referenced in the description of operations. The ACORD 25 certificate form is the standard format for this documentation.

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