Your Guide to Easily Reading an ACORD 25 Certificate of Liability Insurance
Hunter Nelson walks through each section of an ACORD 25 Certificate of Liability Insurance: producer info, insurers A through F with NAIC numbers, coverage blocks for general liability and workers' comp, and the remarks box for endorsements. The certificate is a summary only, so you need the actual endorsements to confirm additional-insured status or waiver of subrogation.
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Most people are confused when they receive an Accor 25 certificate of liability insurance document. Whether you're a policyholder, a certificate holder, or even an additional named insured, you're probably looking at that form and saying, I don't even know where to start. I don't know how to read this. I don't know what information it's providing. In today's video, I'm going to show you how to read and teach you how to read in a core 25 certificate of liability insurance form. Hey, guys. So the accord 25 certificate of liability Insurance is a document where a producer, an agency and insurance company can provide on behalf of their policyholder that summarizes the liability insurance covered by that insured. So let's go ahead and walk through and I'll show you what to look out for or where you can see all the information on this one form. The first thing you'll want to do is when you pull up the Accor 25 on the top, it's going to say Certificate of Liability. Remember, this document is going to show all the different liability coverage that an insured may carry. So starting on the top right, you're going to see a field for the date. That's the date the certificate was produced. That's important because if you see an older date with newer policy numbers or effective dates, it may be something that you might look out for. Maybe a red flag on the top left, underneath the disclaimer, you'll see the producer information. So that's the producer I talked about before. Could be an insurance agency, could be an insurance carrier. That's the person that generated or the office that generated the certificate and that produced the insurance policy for the client. Right under that is going to be the insured. And the insured is the person that holds the policy. They're the policyholder. They're the person insured by the insurance policy or policies that show on this form. On the right next to producer, there's the contact information for the producer, whoever has the certificate, the holder, easy access to phone number, email, fax number for the person that generated the document. And then right below that is a part where people start to get confused. So you'll see insurer or insurers affording coverage. There's insurer A, insurer B, insurer C, insurer D, insurer E, and then insurer F. Now, there are situations where there has to be a continuation of this document if there's more than that. But if you look on the left hand underneath coverages where it says insurers affording coverage. On the very left hand side there's a little section or a column that says insured letter. That's the letter that corresponds with the insurer in the top. So for example, if insurer A, let's say was Liberty Mutual Insurance Co. And Liberty Mutual produced the general liability for this client, there would be an A in that column. Now there could be situations where people have different coverage with different, different carriers. That's going to be the corresponding carrier with the coverage provided in the coverage section. There could be an A, B, C, D, E for each different section of the coverage. You got to make sure that there's an NAIC number. National association of Insurance Commissioners. Every insurance company or writing paper subsidiary has NAIC number. Make sure that column's filled out. Now let's go back to the middle coverages certificate number, revision number. The certificate number may or may not be filled out. Sometimes producers use that information, sometimes they don't. You may see it there, you may not. Down below is what's really important. Starting from the left hand column which we already discussed. Now you have your type of insurance. So on the accor 25 pre filled is going to be your commercial general liability with a bunch of boxes that can be checked off. Now whether it's a claims made policy or an occurrence policy, if the gender aggregate applies to the policy, the project, the location or maybe something else right next to it. If there's an additional insured being generated from the certificate, there's going to be an X or a check mark there. Next one stands for the waiver of subrogation. You'll see a policy number, a policy effective date, policy expiration date and then the limits on the far right. Now right below that's your automobile liability. There's boxes that correspond with the symbol symbol for liability on the policy. Any auto would be checked off. If you have symbol 1 or 2 Odin autos only will be checked. If you have symbol 7 higher to non owned autos or schedule autos are going to be checked. Right below that there's a couple free form boxes. Sometimes you'll see producer put comprehensive and collision coverage down there. And then on the right if it's a combined single limit, you'll see a limit of coverage there. Split limits. You'll see two different limits in the per person per accident. Or it could be the same limit but you'll see two different sections. Then property damage. If it's combined single limit, it's just going to show on the top. But if it's split limits again, you'll see a property damage limit designated there also. Then you have your umbrella or your excess. There's a difference between the two. I won't get too far into that. Whether occurrence claims made, if there's a deductible or retention. And as you move across same information as what I said above. And then the final one is going to be your workers compensation and employer's liability. This one's important to keep in mind. If you're a certificate holder or additional insured and you're looking for specific coverage for the owner of the company, which most times you know, if it's an individual, they're automatically excluded from coverage. If it's an entity such as a corporation elig llc, they exclude themselves from coverage. And if you're looking for coverage for the proprietor, the partner, the executive officer or the member and that box is checked that they're excluded, yes or no, then you'll know you don't have to look inside the policy to see if the exclusions apply. You'll see the N A on the additional insured. And that's because you can't get an additional insured from a work comp or employer's liability policy. But you can get a waiver of subrogation. If you don't know what a waiver of subrogation is, I have other videos here on my YouTube channel that explain the waiver of subrogation, whether a specific waiver or blanket waivers. Now down below that you'll see a blank box, a free form where you can add different coverage that doesn't already come pre filled in sections of the Accord 25 such as professional liability, which is your errors and omissions, your malpractice coverage management lines, epli dno things of that nature. You can put anything really down there that you want as long as it follows along or in the realm of a liability coverage. Now down below that is a description of operations. It says locations, vehicles, additional remarks. There is where the producer will put different remarks as an example of the location of the project or the different vehicles that are listed on the policy or if there was a revision to the certificate, it will put supersedes the previous certificate. Sometimes the producer will list the endorsements on the policy down there, such as primary wording, non contributory wording, all that kind of stuff. So that's an important box. You'll see the standard language for cancellation and then a signature. Make sure it's signed by the office producing the certificate. And again, if you're an additional insured, you have to have an endorsement. The Core25 doesn't provide that endorsement. It's just basically a cover letter that says an endorsement is to follow whether you're specifically scheduled on that person's policy or if it's a blanket either should be attached behind this. With all the language inside the endorsement and how the endorsement and the coverage applies to the additional insurance, there's your quick overview. Hopefully it wasn't too boring and too long, but I tried to get through it as quickly as possible. If you have any questions, There's a lot of Confusion about the Accord 25 Certificate of Liability Insurance. We get lots of questions from certificate holders, clients, prospects. Reach out to us. You can call me directly or anybody at our office. Our general phone number is 858-384-1506. 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