Additional insured status is how a general contractor or owner gets defended and indemnified by a subcontractor's own general-liability carrier instead of paying out of its own tower. But the protection lives or dies on two things buried in the fine print: the form number and the edition date. Get those wrong and the coverage you thought you had simply doesn't respond — and nowhere does that bite harder than in New York.
General Liability · New York · Regulated by NY DFS · General Liability in New York
CG 20 10 adds the general contractor or owner as an additional insured for the subcontractor’s ongoing operations — claims that hit while the work is still in progress. CG 20 37 picks up products–completed operations after the job is done. The current CG 20 10 grants no completed-operations coverage at all, so construction parties typically need both endorsements, not one.
An additional insured endorsement bolts a party who isn’t the policyholder — usually the general contractor, property owner, developer, or construction manager — onto a subcontractor’s liability policy. Once added, the sub’s insurer has to defend and indemnify that upstream party for liability tied to the sub’s work. The subcontractor is the named insured; everyone above it on the job becomes an additional insured. The whole point is to push risk down to the party that actually did the work and controlled the site — and to do it on the sub’s premium dollar, not yours.
Don’t confuse additional insured status with indemnity. They are not the same thing. Indemnity is a contract promise between two businesses — the hold-harmless clause in the subcontract — and it’s only as good as the sub’s balance sheet. If the sub is broke, an indemnity promise pays nothing. Additional insured coverage, by contrast, is an insurance right that runs straight at the sub’s carrier, no matter what shape the sub is in. That’s why any contract drafted by someone who knows what they’re doing demands both.
A certificate of insurance is not coverage. Read that twice — it’s the most expensive misunderstanding in contractor risk transfer. A Certificate of Insurance (almost always the ACORD 25) is just an informational snapshot. Look at the top and you’ll see it spell out, in its own words, that it “does not amend, extend or alter the coverage afforded by the policies” and “confers no rights upon the certificate holder.” Additional insured status is created only by an endorsement attached to the policy — never by a checkbox on a certificate. Being listed as a certificate holder buys you nothing; only the actual AI endorsement does. So pull the endorsement and read it. Every time.
These are the two workhorse ISO additional insured endorsements for “Owners, Lessees or Contractors.” Think of them as complementary, not interchangeable — they split coverage along the project’s timeline, and each one leaves a hole the other fills.
| CG 20 10 | CG 20 37 | |
|---|---|---|
| ISO title | Additional Insured — Owners, Lessees or Contractors — Scheduled Person or Organization | Additional Insured — Owners, Lessees or Contractors — Completed Operations |
| Covers | Ongoing operations — while the work is in progress | Products–completed operations — after the work is finished |
| Responds when | Injury or damage occurs during the job | Injury or damage surfaces after the job is done |
| Gap it leaves | No completed-operations coverage | No ongoing-operations coverage |
Here’s the gap that burns people. A subcontractor finishes its work and demobilizes. Eight months later, a concealed pipe joint the sub installed lets go and floods the building. The owner sues the GC. If the sub’s policy carried only CG 20 10 (ongoing operations), the GC’s additional-insured coverage doesn’t respond — the work was already done, and ongoing-ops coverage ended when the sub drove off. Had the sub also carried CG 20 37 (completed operations), the GC would still be an additional insured for that exact claim. This is the single most common silent gap in construction: the contract requires completed-operations AI, but the sub only bought CG 20 10. The certificate might even read “completed operations” in big friendly letters — and it means nothing if CG 20 37 isn’t actually attached to the policy.
Two endorsements can carry the identical form number and behave like night and day, depending on the edition date stamped in the lower corner (for example, “CG 20 10 04 13”). ISO has rewritten the grant of coverage twice, and each revision quietly chipped away at what the additional insured actually gets:
Bottom line: the form number alone tells you almost nothing. A GC that demands “arising out of” wording but waves through a sub’s 07/04 or 04/13 form has quietly accepted much narrower coverage and may not find out until a claim is denied. Read the edition date.
There are two ways to spell out who counts as an additional insured, and they trade precision for convenience.
Scheduled (specific) AI — CG 20 10 / CG 20 37. Here the additional insured is named on a schedule right in the endorsement. It’s precise, but it’s also a paperwork grind: every new upstream party or project means a fresh endorsement, and often a fresh charge. Leave the schedule blank or misname the entity, and there’s no coverage — full stop.
Blanket / automatic AI — CG 20 33 and CG 20 38. These grant AI status automatically to anyone the named insured is required by written contract to add, with no list to maintain. Convenient — but each has a catch.
And don’t assume “blanket” means “broad.” These forms carry the very same edition-date restrictions (“caused, in whole or in part,” “to the extent permitted by law,” “not broader than required”), and they only trigger off a written contract that exists before the loss and actually requires AI status. A handshake or an after-the-fact agreement won’t do it.
Additional insured status is only one leg of the stool. Well-drafted GC and owner contracts call for a trio of endorsements that work as a set. AI status answers “am I covered?” The other two answer the questions that decide who actually pays: “whose policy goes first?” and “can the sub’s insurer come back after me later?”
The three interlock: AI makes the GC an insured, P&NC forces the sub’s policy to pay first and in full, and the waiver keeps the sub’s insurer from clawing it back from the GC afterward. Drop any one leg and the protection leaks. These are commonly required and requested endorsements — but whether a given carrier will attach them, and on what terms, is an underwriting call.
For this topic, New York is the highest-stakes jurisdiction in the country — and it’s no accident. Three forces collide here: an anti-indemnity statute that wipes out the GC’s favorite contract remedy, absolute-liability Labor Law statutes that rope owners and GCs into every height-related claim, and case law that shrank AI coverage down to the named insured’s proximate fault. Put them together and the AI endorsement stops being a nicety and becomes the GC’s lifeline.
GOL §5-322.1 — anti-indemnity, and why AI is the workaround. General Obligations Law §5-322.1 voids, as against public policy, any construction-contract clause that tries to indemnify an owner or GC for that party’s own negligence. So the hold-harmless clause the GC was counting on can simply evaporate to the extent the GC was at fault. But here’s the part that matters: courts treat the separate insurance-procurement obligation as a different animal. A clause requiring the sub to buy insurance naming the GC as an additional insured survives §5-322.1, because it shifts the cost of the loss to an insurer rather than letting the GC off the hook for its own conduct. That distinction is the whole game — when the indemnity clause gets knocked out, the AI endorsement can still step in and fund the GC’s defense and indemnity.
Labor Law §240 / §241 — absolute liability makes AI coverage indispensable. Labor Law §240(1), the “Scaffold Law,” puts absolute liability on owners and GCs for gravity- and height-related injuries, with no comparative-negligence discount when a §240 violation is a proximate cause. §241(6) layers on non-delegable duties tied to Industrial Code violations. Owners and GCs get pulled into these cases automatically, frequently with no real fault of their own — and downstate verdicts run large. The sub’s AI coverage is the GC’s primary way to fund an exposure it flatly cannot contract away.
Burlington Ins. Co. v. NYC Transit Authority, 29 N.Y.3d 313 (2017). This is the decision every New York GC needs to understand. The endorsement was a CG 20 10 07 04 — the “caused, in whole or in part, by” the named insured’s acts or omissions wording. The sub’s machine contacting a live cable was a but-for cause of the explosion, but the real culprit was the additional insured’s own failure to de-energize that cable, and the sub was found not at fault. The Court of Appeals held that “caused, in whole or in part” means the named insured has to be a proximate cause — not just a but-for link in the chain — so the Transit Authority got no AI coverage at all. The takeaway is blunt: under “caused in whole or in part” forms (07/04 and 04/13), a New York additional insured is effectively covered only to the extent the sub was actually at fault. A GC hurt purely by its own negligence can walk away with nothing.
The certificate is informational only, so treat it as a lead, not proof. To know what you really have, pull the actual endorsement pages and run them against what the contract demands:
Acolite reviews GC insurance schedules and places general liability with the specific additional-insured endorsements New York contracts call for — subject to carrier underwriting and the actual policy and endorsement editions issued.
These are the gaps that competitors gloss over and that cause denied claims or rejected certificates.
The form number alone tells you almost nothing — read the lower-corner stamp (e.g. “CG 20 10 04 13”). “Arising out of” (10/01) is broadest; “caused, in whole or in part” (07/04) is narrower; and the 04/13 / 12/19 editions pile on “to the extent permitted by law” and “not broader than required by contract.” Same number, very different coverage.
The most common silent gap of them all: the sub carries only CG 20 10 (ongoing) while the contract demands completed-operations AI. Insist on CG 20 37 — or a blanket form that expressly includes products–completed operations. Latent-defect claims tend to surface long after the sub has demobilized, which is precisely when CG 20 10 stops responding.
Under Burlington v. NYCTA, “caused, in whole or in part” means the named insured has to be a proximate cause of the injury — not just somewhere in the chain. If the GC needs protection for claims where the sub may carry little or no fault, that narrower wording is a live exposure in New York, not a technicality.
Confirm CG 20 01 (primary & non-contributory) and CG 24 04 (waiver of subrogation) are actually attached as endorsements — not merely checked off on the certificate. AI without P&NC can leave the GC’s own carrier on the hook for contribution; AI without a waiver can leave the GC staring down a subrogation suit from the very carrier that just defended it.
A certificate that proudly reads “additional insured — ongoing & completed operations” means nothing if CG 20 37 isn’t actually attached. Pull the real endorsement pages and confirm the form numbers, edition dates, schedules, and named entities all line up with the contract.
If it’s scheduled, confirm the correct upstream entity is named — and spelled right. If it’s blanket, confirm a written pre-loss contract requires AI status and that the form actually reaches upstream parties (CG 20 38) rather than only those who contract directly with the sub (CG 20 33).
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| Factor | Impact | Detail |
|---|---|---|
| The AI endorsement charge itself | Minor | Published industry figures put a typical additional-insured endorsement add at roughly $25–$50, though very large or high-exposure upstream parties can push a single AI charge toward $300 or more. Some carriers add scheduled AIs at no extra charge under blanket forms; others charge per AI or per project. |
| Effect on the named insured’s base premium | Moderate | Each additional insured added to the sub’s policy increases the carrier’s exposure, so the named insured’s overall premium rises with the number and nature of AIs and the breadth of the endorsements (ongoing vs completed ops, primary & non-contributory, waivers). The sub is paying to insure others’ liability connected to its work. |
| Per-project additional insured | Moderate | Project-specific endorsements or policies are common on larger jobs and let the GC or owner require dedicated limits, but they carry their own premium and administrative cost versus a blanket form. |
| Completed-ops AI on residential / condo work | Major | Completed-operations AI (CG 20 37) is the most exposure-heavy grant because it keeps the carrier on the hook for latent defects that surface years later. On residential and condo construction — long statutes of repose, construction-defect litigation, and action-over exposure — carriers frequently restrict, surcharge, or exclude it. Availability is an underwriting decision. |
| Completed-ops AI on height / exterior trades | Major | On roofing, façade, and scaffolding work, Labor Law §240 absolute liability and large downstate verdicts drive severity. Carriers commonly restrict or surcharge AI — and completed-operations AI in particular — on these classes, or decline to offer it. |
| Blanket vs scheduled administration | Minor | Blanket forms reduce the per-AI administrative load and may carry a single endorsement charge, while scheduled AIs can mean a new endorsement and charge for each upstream party or project. Whichever a carrier offers, and at what cost, is subject to underwriting. |
CG 20 10 grants additional insured status for the named insured’s ongoing operations — claims that arise while the work is still in progress. CG 20 37 covers products–completed operations — claims that surface after the work is finished. The current CG 20 10 doesn’t include completed operations at all, so construction parties typically need both.
If your contract calls for “additional insured for ongoing and completed operations” — and most construction contracts do — then yes. CG 20 10 on its own leaves the upstream party exposed for defects and failures that show up after the job wraps, which is exactly when many of the biggest construction claims hit.
It makes the sub’s policy pay first (“primary”) and stops the sub’s insurer from chasing the upstream party’s own insurer for a share (“non-contributory”). Paired with AI status, it means the sub’s coverage gets fully used up before the GC or owner’s own policy is ever touched.
After the sub’s insurer pays a claim, it would normally try to recover from any negligent party — including the GC or owner. A waiver of subrogation, agreed in writing before the loss, slams that door, blocking the insurer from coming back against the protected upstream party.
No. A COI (ACORD 25) is informational only — it says so right on its face, that it doesn’t amend or alter the policy. Additional insured status exists only if the actual endorsement is attached to the policy. Always get the endorsement and read it, not just the certificate.
A certificate holder just gets a copy of the certificate — and zero coverage rights. An additional insured is genuinely added to the policy by endorsement and can tender its own claims straight to that insurer.
The same form number behaves differently from edition to edition. Older editions (10/01) say “arising out of,” which is broad. The 07/04 edition switches to “caused, in whole or in part,” which is narrower because it ties coverage to the sub’s fault. The 04/13 / 12/19 editions add “to the extent permitted by law” and cap AI coverage at what the contract requires — narrowest of all. Always check the edition date in the form’s corner.
“Arising out of” needs only a loose connection to the named insured’s work, which makes it broader for the additional insured. “Caused, in whole or in part” ties coverage to the named insured’s actual causation — and in New York, after Burlington v. NYCTA, that means the named insured has to be a proximate cause, not just a but-for cause.
Blanket forms (CG 20 33, CG 20 38) automatically grant AI status to parties you’re required by written contract to add, with no list to maintain. They’re convenient but have limits: CG 20 33 may not reach upstream parties you don’t directly contract with, while CG 20 38 does — yet both generally cover ongoing operations only, so you may still need CG 20 37 for completed operations.
In New York, generally no — not under “caused, in whole or in part” forms. After Burlington v. NYCTA, AI coverage requires the named insured (the sub) to be a proximate cause of the injury. If the loss was caused solely by the GC’s own negligence, the sub’s AI coverage may not respond at all.
Because §5-322.1 voids the indemnity clause, but courts treat the separate insurance-procurement obligation as perfectly valid. Requiring the sub to name you as an additional insured is the recognized workaround — the AI coverage can still respond even where the indemnity clause is dead on arrival.
Usually the “trio”: additional insured for ongoing and completed operations (CG 20 10 + CG 20 37), primary and non-contributory (CG 20 01), and waiver of subrogation (CG 24 04). And verify the actual endorsements and their edition dates — not just what the certificate claims.
Other coverage questions New York contractors run into on the same kind of job.
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