Why You Should Get Certificates of Insurance for Subcontractors

Serving as a snapshot of coverage, Certificates of Insurance (COIs) contain the most important details of a policy in a standardized, single-page form. This includes information like coverage type, carrier information, important policy dates and policy limits. Most importantly, COIs serve as your protection against third-party risk.

COIs are essential documents for those industries that utilize contracted labor. This makes them incredibly beneficial for the construction industry, regardless of the project. With all the complexities and moving parts of job sites, professionals in this field are faced with high accident risks and it is crucial to protect your company from workers’ compensation liability for the employees of your subcontractors. 

In the construction industry, not only are you responsible for the coverage of your business, but you are also vulnerable to the details of your vendors’ policies. To mitigate risk, you should have processes in place for collecting and verifying your vendors’ COIs. For workers’ compensation, the verification of coverage app found at sifsafety.com is a great tool to assist you. Once you find the Louisiana coverage for your specific subcontractor, you can sign up for email or text alerts when that app is notified that the status of that particular policy has changed.  

Protect your company by obtaining COIs on all your subs from that subcontractor’s agent before beginning work, and periodically update as the work progresses. Finally, if you are in the construction industry, and using subcontractors, you will likely need the COIs at your audit on your workers’ compensation policy. If you are going to have to collect the COIs for audit, then you might as well get them before work begins by that sub so that you don’t end up owing the workers’ compensation claim for your subcontractor.