Certificate of Liability Insurance Form PDF

The certificate of insurance (COI) might be one of the most critical items in a company’s risk management portfolio. It’s a simple form, but it carries a lot of weight. If you receive a certificate of insurance for business protection, for example, if you hire subcontractors and need those subcontractors to carry the insurance risk they generate through the course of their business, a COI is probably the mechanism by which you confirm that subcontractor is in fact carrying that protection.

Anyone can find a certificate of insurance online. There are easily available PDFs anyone can fill out, and plenty of examples to show them what should go in each box. This small chance for fraud, limited as it may be, is just one of the reasons that companies like myCOI help companies just like yours track and verify the certificates of insurance that you receive. Even with that said, certificate of insurance sample PDFs are useful training tools, especially since one certificate of insurance ACORD form, the form 25, is perhaps the most common general liability COI form. A certificate of liability insurance can fulfill a number of duties.

Whether you’re a certificate holder who receives COIs or a named insured who provides them (we’ll explain those terms below!), knowing the ins and outs of a COI form is key. Let’s take a look at a certificate of liability insurance form.

Certificate of Insurance Form Sample

It may be helpful to take a look at a ACORD 25 sample, or other sample COI form. This might also include a sample certificate of insurance with additional insured information, or may be a more basic certificate of liability insurance form.

There are a lot of boxes out on this form. Whether you’re reviewing a certificate issued by your agent or other insurer, these include:

• You need to make sure your general liability insurance is listed. This typically includes the per occurrence limit and the aggregate limits of the policy.
• You also need to confirm the policy number. This includes the policy effective date and the policy expiration date.
• If you have automobile liability insurance, you need to include this as well. Again, make sure you confirmed the policy number, effective date, and expiration date.
• If you have workers’ compensation and employers t liability insurance, you should include all of this information as well. This includes the policy number, effective date, and expiration date.
• You may also have an umbrella or excess insurance policy. An umbrella or excess policy is a policy that kicks in if you exceed the maximum liability on some or all of the underlying insurance policies. 

If you have questions about how an ACORD form should be filled out properly, you may want to take a look at an ACORD form sample for help.

ACORD Certificate Of Liability Insurance Form

If you run a small business today, then you have probably already seen firsthand the importance of protecting your investment against unexpected damages and events. While you certainly plan to do everything you can to provide exceptional products and services to your customers, it is also important to think about your liability if something beyond your control happens.

A certificate of liability insurance form is key because it serves as proof that your business is adequately protected against potential risks. Especially in certain industries, many clients will hesitate to go with a company that does not have the right protection in place and the right forms to show what kinds of protection they have. This is why it is important for you to learn how to get an ACORD certificate of insurance sample. 

When new business leaders think about ACORD insurance services, they are often envisioning an insurance company that provides them with a specific type of insurance. However, keep in mind that this is not quite what ACORD does. Instead, ACORD is a nonprofit organization whose main service is to provide insurance form solutions. 

It is also important to remember that these forms sometimes change from year to year. This is why the ACORD certificate of liability insurance 2020 form may not necessarily be the same as the ACORD certificate of liability insurance 2021 form—not that either of those exist, as the last update was 2016. Quite often, we at myCOI get asked about annual updates to forms that were not, in fact, updated, so always be sure to go to the ACORD site itself and double-check the most recent version of the form is. ACORD certificate of liability insurance PDFs are a useful tool, but there’s a lot of misinformation out there. 

All things considered, in order for you to make sure that you can prove your business is adequately protected, it is important to make sure that you have the right certificate of insurance liability form. Plus, if you are wondering how to do that exactly, then it is important to take a closer look at the instructions that go along with this form from ACORD, or even just practice reading a blank certificate of insurance. Not so you can fill it out, but so that you can confirm that your insurance agent or broker, who is the only person who should be creating your certificates of insurance, got all the details right.

Sample Certificate Of Insurance With Additional Insured

IRMI—the International Risk Management Institute—defines an additional insured as “a person or organization not automatically included as an insured under an insurance policy who is included or added as an insured under the policy at the request of the named insured.” That translates quite often as “I need to extend the coverage I purchase from my insurer to the third-party hiring me to do some work.” 

A sample of additional insured endorsements is relatively easy to find online. A quick search will turn up a plethora of certificate of insurance additional insured wording. What you’re going to see is a standard certificate of insurance, but with the addition of the additional insured. Be careful that you don’t mistake a sample certificate of insurance with additional insured for an example of the kind of coverage you need to secure for your business; that’s a conversation you need to have with your insurer, not something you get from a PDF. A sample COI with additional insured is just meant to be an example of format.

Fake ACORD Certificate

The right form makes ensuring your vendors and contractors are in compliance much easier. With an ACORD certificate of insurance verification becomes a matter of confirming each of the listed values matches what your requirements are.

Easy, right? Not exactly. The easy and unquestioned access of anyone to free ACORD certificate of insurance fillable forms means that you may need to also verify the coverage with the issuing agent or broker. Knowing how to verify a certificate of insurance with the issuing agent is a handy skill for risk team members or compliance admins to have. Business insurance is a complicated business, and it pays dividends to learn all the skills you can.

Sometimes it’s not just coverage you have to verify. If you’ve held this certificate for a while, you may want to verify that the certificate is still valid. Coverage expires, or gets modified, and sometimes new certificates with accurate coverage are not provided to you.

Regardless, knowing how to verify a certificate of insurance is a skill every compliance admin or risk manager needs to know. It’s not enough to recognize an ACORD certificate of property insurance when you requested a general liability form. 

Sample ACORD 25

As you are looking at your ACORD 25 certificate of insurance form sample, and then double-checking your own actual certificate, it is important to make sure there are no mistakes. If you’re providing this certificate to a hiring entity, they’re going to verify your coverage. If there are discrepancies, that could slow down when you begin work or even delay the project.

Think of it this way: in many states, you’re required to carry a certificate of car insurance sample—well, not a sample, the little card your car insurance agent gives you is the actual certificate—in case you get pulled over, to prove you’re covered in case of an accident. Companies have to do the same check, except the insurance requirements for businesses when dealing with other businesses are far more complex.  

If you’re learning how to read certificates of insurance, a sample ACORD 25 is a good place to start. It is the most common general liability certificate of insurance form.

On the ACORD 25 form, there are a few common mistakes people make. One of the most common mistakes is getting policy numbers confused. Your auto, workers’ compensation, and general liability insurance policies may have different policy numbers. Make sure you pair the right policy number with the right type of insurance. 

Furthermore, these policies may have different expiration dates. Do not assume they all have the same effective date and expiration date. If you do, you may end up assigning the wrong dates to the wrong policies. This will render your ACORD 25 form PDF inaccurate. Double-check the policy effective dates and expiration dates before you provide the certificate to anyone. If you have questions about your insurance policies, reach out to your insurance provider for more information.

The easy availability of free ACORD 25 fillable forms means many are tempted to fill out their own COIs, but don’t fall prey to that; only your broker or agent should be issuing certificates.

Certificate Of Insurance Compliance

Knowing how to organize certificates of insurance for tracking is a necessity for any company that hires third parties such as contractors or vendors. A certificate of insurance tracking solution allows businesses to track certificate of insurance compliance. It’s more than a free expiration date tracking software. And it’s a complicated practice that requires more nuance than “I have a stack of certificates now what?”

One of the most common mistakes that businesses make is not keeping accurate records of certificates of insurance. This puts them at risk for fines and penalties if they do not have up-to-date documentation on hand when requested by a third party, such as an attorney, sometimes even when they think they’re in compliance because they don’t check certificate of insurance requirements by state, which vary. In addition to having legal consequences, failing to keep track of your company’s certificates could lead to financial losses. It also increases the likelihood of liability lawsuits filed against your business. Knowing who needs to provide a certificate of insurance is one of the core components of risk management.

It’s not just those who hire contractors and vendors that need to track certificates of insurance. Property managers who host commercial tenants also need to ensure those tenants are carrying the proper insurance. We often see the duty of securing and verifying these COIs fall on property managers, instead of dedicated risk teams, so we strongly suggest having on hand a sample letter requesting certificate of insurance from commercial tenants, so you can quickly request the COIs you need to manage your property’s risk.

Remember. If you find yourself asking which vendors need a certificate of insurance, the answer is usually “all of them.” That’s just certificate of insurance 101. The next step, knowing how to request a certificate of insurance from a vendor, is something your risk management team probably already has a process for.