How to manage contractor insurance certificates

Set your requirements before you collect anything

Certificates are only useful if you know what they should show. Write down your minimums once, by trade or risk level, and include them in your contracts, purchase orders and onboarding packages. Contractors can then arrange coverage before they arrive, instead of after a reviewer finds a gap.

Common requirements for commercial work include:

• Commercial general liability (CGL) of at least $2M per occurrence, which is the most common minimum. Many owners ask for $5M for higher-risk trades such as roofing, fire protection, demolition, restoration and elevator work, and for larger sites.
• Your organization named as additional insured on the CGL policy.
• Notice of cancellation, often 30 days.
• Auto liability where vehicles are used on site.
• Professional liability for consultants and engineers, and pollution liability for environmental or abatement work.

If you are unsure where to set limits, see how much liability insurance a contractor should carry.

What to check on every certificate of insurance

Read each certificate line by line when it arrives. A quick glance tends to miss the details that matter most when a claim happens.

1. Named insured. The legal name should match the business you are contracting with, not a parent company or a sole proprietor's personal name unless that is who you hired.
2. Insurer and policy number. Both should be present for each coverage listed.
3. Limits. Compare each limit to your requirement for that trade. Check whether the limit is per occurrence or aggregate.
4. Effective and expiry dates. Confirm the policy is in force today and will be in force for the planned work.
5. Additional insured wording. Confirm your organization's correct legal name appears where required.
6. Description of operations. Check that the work described reasonably covers the work you are hiring them to do.
7. Issuer. Certificates should come from the broker or insurer. Be cautious with documents that look edited or that the contractor produced themselves.

Track expiry dates in one place

Most certificate problems are not bad documents, they are good documents that quietly expired. Policies renew on different dates for every vendor, so a folder of PDFs will not warn you when coverage ends.

Keep a single register, whether a spreadsheet or a compliance tool, with one row per vendor and one column per document. For each certificate, record:

• Vendor name and primary contact
• Coverage type and limits
• Policy expiry date
• Date received and who reviewed it
• Status: accepted, needs correction, or expired

Track the WSIB clearance alongside insurance. Clearances are valid for up to 90 days and most expire on February 20, May 20, August 20 and November 20, so they need renewing far more often than insurance does. See how long a WSIB clearance is valid.

Request renewals before coverage lapses

A simple renewal cadence prevents most gaps. Many property managers use a schedule like this:

• 30 days before expiry: ask the vendor to send the renewed certificate once their broker issues it.
• 7 days before expiry: send a second reminder and copy the person who books the vendor's work.
• On the expiry date: mark the vendor as non-compliant and pause new work orders until a current certificate arrives.

Decide in advance what happens when a vendor is mid-project and their certificate expires. A written rule, applied consistently, is easier to defend than case-by-case decisions. For more on this, see what happens when a contractor's insurance expires.

Keep records you can rely on later

When an incident happens months later, you will need to show which certificate was on file on the date of the work. Keep every version, not just the current one. Store each certificate with the date received and the reviewer's name, and do not overwrite older files.

For WSIB clearances, principals and contractors must keep clearance records for at least three years. Many organizations apply a similar or longer retention period to insurance certificates as a matter of practice.

How to put this into practice

1. Write your insurance requirements by trade and add them to contracts and onboarding packages.
2. Collect a current certificate from every active vendor and review it against the checklist above.
3. Build one register with expiry dates for insurance and WSIB clearances.
4. Set reminders at 30 days and 7 days before each expiry.
5. Review the register monthly and follow up on anything missing or expired.

The contractor compliance checklist can help you set requirements, and Vendorpass can track certificates and expiry reminders for you if you prefer not to maintain a spreadsheet.