Vendor Insurance Requirements: A Property Manager's Checklist

Every vendor who sets foot on a property — landscapers, HVAC techs, roofers, janitorial crews, elevator contractors — brings two things: their work, and their liability. Vendor insurance requirements exist so that when a vendor's employee gets hurt or a vendor's mistake damages the building, the claim lands on the vendor's policy instead of the owner's.

The mistake most vendor programs make isn't requiring too little — it's requiring the same thing from everyone. A flat standard is simultaneously too weak for your roofer and pointless friction for the company that waters the lobby plants. The fix is a risk-tiered schedule: three tiers, three requirement sets, applied consistently.

The three-tier vendor requirements checklist

Tier 1 — Low risk. Office-based or low-hazard on-site work: consultants, plant care, window blinds, pest control (non-fumigation).

• General liability: $1M per occurrence / $2M aggregate
• Workers' comp: statutory (if they have employees)
• Additional insured: owner + management company, by endorsement

Tier 2 — Standard trades. Janitorial, landscaping, general maintenance, painting, plumbing, electrical, HVAC.

• Everything in Tier 1, plus:
• Commercial auto: $1M CSL (they're driving to and parking at your property)
• Umbrella: $1M–$2M
• Primary and noncontributory wording
• Waiver of subrogation (GL and workers' comp)

Tier 3 — High hazard. Roofing, elevator work, structural repairs, demolition, fire suppression, snow removal (yes — slip-and-fall claims make snow vendors a top loss source), any work at height or with heavy equipment.

• Everything in Tier 2, plus:
• Umbrella: $5M+ (scale to the work)
• Completed operations coverage confirmed (claims from this work arrive after the work is done)
• Contractual liability confirmed — the policy has to actually back the indemnity the vendor signed

Put the tier assignments in writing in your vendor onboarding standard, and put the requirements themselves in the service agreement. A requirement that lives only in an email is an opinion.

The endorsements — same rules as everywhere else

The short version (the COI tracking guide covers this in depth): additional insured status must come by endorsement naming the exact owner and manager entities; "additional insured" typed in a certificate's description box amends nothing; primary and noncontributory keeps the vendor's policy in front of yours; waiver of subrogation stops their carrier from paying and then suing you. Require the endorsement pages attached to every certificate — an unverifiable endorsement is an absent one.

Verify before the first work order, not after

The sequence matters more than the paperwork. A vendor who hasn't been paid yet answers emails; a vendor mid-contract does not. So the moment of verification is onboarding, and the gate is simple: no compliant COI on file → no work order, no payment. Tie compliance status to your payables system if you can — it's the only enforcement mechanism that requires no chasing at all.

Then hold the line at renewals. Vendor policies renew annually, and renewal is where compliant vendors quietly become non-compliant — a new carrier, a dropped umbrella, a missing endorsement on the new certificate. Re-verify every vendor at every renewal against their tier requirements, and treat a certificate that doesn't arrive as a lapse until proven otherwise.

Common gaps to expect when you start checking: certificates naming the wrong property entity, umbrella policies that expired mid-term while the GL stayed current, workers' comp "exemptions" that don't hold up in your state, and — the perennial — additional insured status claimed in the description box with no endorsement in sight.

The workload, honestly

A proper vendor program is: tier every vendor, extract requirements into a checkable schedule, verify certificate + endorsements at onboarding, gate work orders on compliance, re-verify at every renewal, and chase every gap through three-to-five rounds with the vendor's insurance agent. At 100+ vendors, the chase alone is somebody's part-time job — which is why it's the step that quietly stops happening.

That chase — reading each COI and its endorsements against the vendor's tier requirements, flagging gaps, and following up with the vendor or their agent by email, phone, and text until the corrected certificate lands — is the loop Tightrope's agent Travis runs end to end.

FAQ

What insurance should property management vendors carry? General liability ($1M/$2M) with the owner and manager as additional insureds is the floor for everyone. Add commercial auto, umbrella, and waiver of subrogation for standard trades, and $5M+ umbrella with completed operations coverage for high-hazard work.

Should small vendors with no employees still provide a COI? Yes — GL coverage isn't about headcount, it's about what their work can damage. For workers' comp, require either coverage or a valid state exemption certificate on file.

Who pays for vendor insurance compliance tracking? Some platforms charge vendors an annual credentialing fee; others charge the management company. Whoever pays, the manager owns the risk if it isn't done — see our comparison of vendor compliance platforms.

Can we let a vendor start work while their COI is being corrected? You can, but you've spent your leverage. The pre-work gate is the cheapest enforcement you'll ever get; exceptions should be rare, written, and time-boxed.

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Want to know which of your vendors would pass their own requirements today? Run a few COIs through Travis on Tightrope's free plan and find out.