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The certificate is the paper a decision maker asks for. The endorsements behind it decide whether you can bid at all.

A RocketLevel guide for restoration owners, backed by decades of experience in the trade. About a 6-minute read.

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Reviewed October 2026. Policy forms and state insurance rules vary. Use this page to know what to ask, then confirm with your broker, your state agency or a construction attorney before you rely on it.

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Contractors lose real money on this point, so start here: a certificate of insurance is evidence, not coverage. The standard ACORD certificate (the form published by the Association for Cooperative Operations Research and Development, the insurance industry's forms body) says on its face that it is issued as a matter of information only, that it confers no rights on the certificate holder, and that it does not amend, extend, or alter the coverage in the policies it describes. Every protection a commercial contract asks you to provide lives in the policy and its endorsements. If the endorsement was never issued, the certificate saying so does not create it, and the party relying on it finds out at claim time.

When a property manager or facility director vets a restoration contractor, two policies sit at the gate: general liability and workers' compensation. A residential shop can sometimes coast on thin coverage. Commercial decision makers, building owners, and the general contractors above them will not, and the requirements are written into their vendor process before they ever read your price.

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General liability, at commercial limits

Residential work may get by on modest limits. Commercial accounts commonly require higher general-liability limits (often a $1M-per-occurrence, $2M-aggregate floor, sometimes more). That number is contract language each commercial account sets, so read the requirement in the Master Service Agreement (MSA). With it come three endorsements that trip up shops that have never needed them:

• Additional insured. The building owner, property manager, or general contractor (GC) wants to be named as an additional insured for the job. Understand what that actually takes: additional insured status exists only as an endorsement your carrier attaches to the policy, such as the Insurance Services Office (ISO) form CG 20 10 for ongoing operations or CG 20 37 for completed operations. Listing someone in the certificate holder box, or typing their name into the description box on the certificate, gives them nothing. Ask your broker for a copy of the issued endorsement and keep it with the job file.
• Primary and non-contributory. Most commercial contracts require that your policy respond first and that the owner's or GC's own insurance not be called on to share. That is also a separate endorsement, not a certificate note.
• Waiver of subrogation. Many commercial contracts require it, and this one is time-sensitive. A waiver of subrogation is an endorsement that gives up your carrier's right to recover from the other party after it pays a claim, and it has to be in force before the loss happens. The standard CGL condition says the insured must do nothing after a loss to impair the carrier's right of recovery (ISO form CG 00 01, Section IV, Transfer of Rights of Recovery; read the wording in your own policy), so a waiver signed after something goes wrong is not one the policy backs. If a contract requires one, get the endorsement issued before your crew sets foot on the property.

Large-loss work often adds an umbrella or excess liability layer on top, and some jobs require bonding. None of this can be arranged the day the bid is due. It takes a conversation with your broker in advance.

Workers' compensation, and the number that scores you

Whether you must carry workers' comp, and from what headcount, is state law, so look up yours. In Texas, private employers may elect not to carry it, though non-subscribers there must report that status to the Texas Department of Insurance and give up the contributory negligence, assumption of risk and fellow-employee defenses in an employee injury suit under Texas Labor Code 406.033. Either way the commercial question is settled separately: commercial accounts and GCs will demand proof of coverage, and most will not approve a vendor without it regardless of what the state requires. There is a second layer plenty of owners overlook: your experience modification rate (EMR), the factor the National Council on Compensation Insurance (NCCI) or your state's rating bureau calculates by comparing your actual losses with the losses expected for businesses of your class and size. A 1.00 is average; below 1.00 earns a credit, above it a debit. Prequalification platforms and the decision makers at large accounts read it. A high EMR signals risk and can quietly disqualify you from an approved-vendor list before anyone calls. Knowing your EMR, and working to bring it down through a real safety program, is part of being commercially insurable.

The trap

The instinct is to carry the least coverage you can to hold down premium. On commercial that backfires twice: you lose bids you were technically qualified for because your certificate of insurance (COI) does not meet the spec, and if a loss happens on an underinsured job, the gap is yours to eat.

What to line up

• [ ] General-liability limits that meet commercial specs, with additional-insured, primary and non-contributory, and waiver-of-subrogation endorsements your broker can actually issue per account. Ask for the endorsement forms themselves, not just a certificate referencing them, and confirm the waiver of subrogation is in place before work starts rather than after.