Identify the required parties
Confirm the exact legal entities and their roles, including owners, affiliates and upstream contractors where requested. Review whether an endorsement requires a written contract and when that contract must be executed. Blanket wording should be checked against the actual contractual relationship.
Compare ongoing and completed work
Determine whether the requirement concerns work in progress, completed operations or both. Review limitations involving causation, scope, limits and applicable law. The policy may not provide protection as broad as the customer’s contract requests, even when the endorsement title appears familiar.
Coordinate the other conditions
Primary and noncontributory wording, waivers and excess treatment are separate review points. Preserve the issued endorsements and communicate unresolved differences before work begins. A certificate should accurately describe existing coverage rather than serve as a substitute for changing the policy.
Illustrative review scenario
A customer requests completed-operations additional insured protection, but the contractor supplies only an ongoing-operations endorsement. The title on the certificate does not resolve that distinction. Review the issued wording, required duration and contractual relationship. If the requested protection is unavailable or narrower than the contract, document the difference and resolve it with the customer before representing compliance. Does the endorsement apply to the customer named in the signed agreement and to the specific stage of work? Check the legal relationship and wording instead of relying only on a familiar endorsement title.