Additional Insured Endorsement Checklist for Retail Partners (2026)

An additional insured endorsement adds your retail or wholesale partner onto your general liability policy, giving them coverage for claims that arise from the products you supply. For a product brand, the form that does this is usually the ISO CG 20 15 vendors endorsement, not the certificate you email over. The endorsement on your policy is what creates the coverage; the certificate only reports that it already exists.

This checklist walks through the exact steps, the right form, the limits to match, and what it actually costs.

What does adding a retailer as additional insured do?

An additional insured endorsement extends your general liability coverage to a retail partner for claims arising from the products you supply them. The retailer can tender a lawsuit to your policy and get defense and indemnity, instead of leaning only on their own insurance or on an indemnity promise from you. The IRMI definition frames an additional insured as a party added to your policy at your request, which is what puts your insurer's dollars behind the deal.

A certificate of insurance works differently. It proves you carry a policy and hands the holder a snapshot of your coverage, but it grants no coverage rights of its own. (Most sellers find out which document they actually have at the worst possible moment.)

Partners insist on real additional insured status for one reason. An indemnity clause is only a promise, and it is worth exactly what your bank account is worth on the day a claim lands. Naming an additional insured retailer modifies the Who Is An Insured section of your underlying policy, and that is what creates coverage the partner can actually collect on.

Which endorsement form does my retailer need?

Most product brands need the ISO CG 20 15 vendors endorsement, which adds the retailer to your general liability policy for claims arising from the goods you sell them. A contractor-style CG 20 10 additional insured endorsement covers only your ongoing operations and leaves the product-injury exposure uncovered. That gap is the one that gets brands rejected at compliance review.

The dangerous moment for a product brand comes after the sale, once a customer has your finished product and it injures someone. That window is called products-completed operations, the stretch after a sale when your product is out in the world. The CG 20 15 form, defined by IRMI, extends your product liability coverage to the retailer for exactly those claims. The CG 20 37 form reaches into that same completed-operations period when a contract calls for it by name.

One partner's contract we read specified the exact endorsement by ISO form number, naming the CG 20 26 designated-organization form rather than just saying "add us as additional insured." The brand could only learn that from the contract language itself, which is why your broker should work straight from the contract language itself. Here is how the three forms compare for a product brand.

The additional insured endorsement checklist

To add a retailer as additional insured, confirm your general liability policy includes product liability coverage (the insurance term is products-completed operations), match your limits to the vendor agreement, ask your broker for the CG 20 15 vendors endorsement naming the retailer, add the extras the contract requires, then send the certificate that reports it. Each step maps to a line in the agreement.

Here is how to add additional insured status, in the order that keeps a compliance portal from bouncing you:

1. Read the insurance section of the vendor agreement first, since it names the exact form, limits, and wording you have to satisfy.
2. Confirm your general liability policy already includes products-completed operations, the coverage that responds when someone is hurt by your product after it sells.
3. Match the required limits exactly. Copy the numbers from the agreement rather than guessing your current limits are enough.
4. Ask your broker for the CG 20 15 vendors endorsement naming the exact legal entity, for example "Target Corporation and its subsidiaries."
5. Add primary and non-contributory wording and a waiver of subrogation if the contract calls for them, since each is a separate endorsement.
6. Confirm the carrier behind your policy meets any required financial-strength rating, commonly A.M. Best A-VIII or better.
7. Get the certificate (the ACORD 25 form) listing the partner as certificate holder and showing the additional insured endorsement.
8. Re-confirm at each renewal and send a fresh certificate before the current one expires.

The exact legal entity name matters more than it looks. Automated compliance portals reject names that do not match character for character, so a missing "Inc." can stall your delivery for days. The table below maps each demand a vendor agreement tends to make to the action that satisfies it.

Step six is the one brands skip and regret. A brand can carry the right limits and the right endorsement and still get its certificate rejected because the carrier behind the policy is not rated highly enough. A flat-fee broker handles the endorsement and the certificate together and checks the form against the contract before you send anything.

What limits and extras do retailers require?

Retailers typically require $1 million per occurrence and $2 million aggregate in general liability, including product liability, with the retailer named as additional insured. Big-box accounts and large venues often demand $5 million or more, reached by stacking an umbrella over your primary policy. The partner sets the number, and it can swing widely.

A specialty coffee brand we worked with had two partners ask to be added as additional insured in the same quarter, and the demands looked nothing alike. A pro sports arena wanted $5 million in general liability plus a $5 million umbrella. A major-league ballpark wanted $1 million per occurrence, $2 million general aggregate, and a separate $2 million products-completed operations aggregate. Same brand, same products, two different numbers. Copy the limits from the agreement exactly rather than assuming your existing coverage clears the bar.

Most agreements pair the limits with two extra requirements. Primary and non-contributory means your policy pays first and your insurer won't ask the partner's insurer to chip in. As Craig Stanovich, a risk-management consultant, explains it, the wording sets the order in which policies respond and has nothing to do with dividing blame. A waiver of subrogation means your insurer agrees not to chase the partner later to recover what it paid, and it rides on a separate endorsement from your additional insured status.

These two usually arrive bundled with the additional insured demand in the same paragraph, often alongside a 30-day cancellation-notice requirement, and brands routinely miss the last two. Marketplaces like Amazon and Walmart set their own marketplace additional insured requirements, so read each contract on its own terms.

Does adding an additional insured cost money?

Adding a scheduled additional insured is usually free or a small fee on a commercial general liability policy. A blanket vendors endorsement that covers all your retail and wholesale accounts at once typically runs a small single-digit percentage of your general liability premium. The endorsement is cheap. The limits big retailers force on you are what actually move your premium.

So the common worry, that naming a retailer as additional insured is expensive, has the cost in the wrong place. The real money shows up when a partner pushes you from a $1M baseline up to $5M. To reach that number you buy an umbrella policy, and the umbrella carries its own premium, separate from the additional insured endorsement itself.

Does the listing raise your premium directly? Rarely. A claim the partner tenders to your policy can affect your future claims record, the log of past claims carriers price off of, and that is what can nudge your rate later.

What happens if you skip the endorsement?

If you sign a vendor agreement promising additional insured status but never add the endorsement, a certificate of insurance won't save you. A certificate reports coverage; the endorsement on your general liability policy is what grants it. The New York Department of Financial Services has held that a certificate cannot name an additional insured unless the policy itself includes them. So a clean-looking certificate with no matching endorsement leaves you in breach of contract, and the partner can refuse delivery or charge you back.

The partner agreements we have read say this outright. They state in writing that receiving a certificate is not compliance and does not waive the requirement. They demand the actual endorsements furnished before the brand can begin, with a fresh certificate issued every year before the policy expires. Reed Smith notes that failing to provide promised additional insured status exposes you to breach claims and the partner's uninsured losses. The indemnity you promised becomes uncollectable the moment a product claim lands.

A flat-fee broker carries no commission incentive to upsell limits you don't need, so they read the insurance section of the vendor agreement, add the right endorsement, and verify the certificate matches before you send it. If you want help getting the endorsement and limits right across your retail accounts, Coverwatch covers this as part of ecommerce insurance for scaling brands.