Insurance, buildings and compliance
What Certificate of Insurance Does a Cleaning Company Need for a New York Office Building?
Your building sets the requirement, not the cleaning company, so the first step is getting the insurance wording from your managing agent. Buildings commonly specify general liability and workers' compensation at stated limits, with the owner and the managing agent named as additional insured. Certificates are rejected for wording far more often than for coverage: the entity names have to match the handbook exactly.
What a COI Is
A Certificate of Insurance is a one-page summary issued by an insurer confirming that a vendor carries specific coverage, that particular parties are named as additional insured, and until when. Your managing agent uses it to confirm that if something goes wrong in the building, there is cover behind it.
Why Certificates Bounce
Almost always wording rather than coverage.
The entity names on the certificate have to match the handbook exactly. Not approximately: the building owner, the managing agent and sometimes the tenant, spelled and ordered the way the handbook spells and orders them, including any "its successors and assigns" language. The property address has to match too.
Insurers issue certificates from templates. Give them the exact wording and it takes a day. Give them an approximation and it takes three, because it comes back.
Do This Before You Tender
Email your managing agent and ask for the vendor requirements: the insurance wording and limits, the registration process, and what they need before badges are issued. Then give that same package to every company you are considering.
Two things follow. You get a realistic start date instead of an optimistic one, and you see immediately which companies read it.
Keep an Eye on the Expiry
Certificates expire, usually annually. Renewal is a non-event if somebody is watching the date and an access problem if nobody is. Put the expiry in your own calendar as well as relying on the company to track it. It prevents the version of this where a crew is turned away at the dock.
What Broadway NY Cleaning Does
We complete vendor registration and insurance paperwork before the first shift and give you a realistic commencement date rather than promising an earlier one and explaining it afterwards. Send us your building's requirements with your enquiry and we will tell you what the timeline looks like.
Get a Free Estimate for Your Premises
Call now, or send us the details and we will come and look. We survey the premises, set out the scope and the labour-hours behind it in writing, and there is no charge and no obligation for any of it.