CG 20 10 vs CG 20 37

Ongoing vs completed operations

"Additional insured" isn't one thing — it splits by when the claim happens. Ongoing operations means the work is still in progress. Completed operations means the sub's work is finished and something goes wrong afterward. Which one responds turns on when the damage happened, not when the claim was filed — that second question is occurrence vs claims-made, and it is separate. Those are covered by two different endorsements, and a complete requirements clause asks for both: CG 20 10 for ongoing operations, CG 20 37 for completed operations. Since the 10 93 edition, CG 20 10 has not reached completed operations — ISO issued CG 20 37 alongside it in 1993 to cover that half — so the two are genuinely separate forms, and carrying one does not give you the other.

Why completed operations is the one that bites

The claims that are hardest to defend rarely show up while the crew is on site. A roof that leaks two winters later, a slab that cracks, a fixture that fails — construction-defect and property-damage claims tend to surface after the job wraps, often years later and still inside your state's statute of repose. If the sub only carried CG 20 10, your additional-insured status ended when their work did, and you're exposed for exactly the claims that arrive late. CG 20 37 is what keeps you covered when they do. The coverage it attaches to — products and completed operations — also carries its own aggregate, separate from the general one, which is a second thing worth checking on the same certificate.

The 2004 change that narrowed what you get

One revision matters more than any other and almost nothing written for contractors mentions it. The older additional-insured forms granted you coverage for liability arising out of the named insured's work — broad wording that, on many facts, reached your own negligence as well, because your negligence still arose in connection with their operations.

The 2004 revision replaced that with liability caused, in whole or in part, by the named insured's acts or omissions. The shift is from a loose connection to actual causation. On a claim where the sub did nothing wrong and the failure was yours, the older wording often responded and the current wording is designed not to. Your additional-insured status still covers you where the sub contributed even partly — "in whole or in part" is doing real work — but it stopped being a general transfer of your own exposure onto their policy.

Two practical consequences. First, this is why the edition date on the endorsement is worth recording rather than glancing at: forms of different vintages are still in circulation, and they grant materially different things. Second, it is the reason your own general liability still matters on every job. Additional-insured status was never a substitute for carrying your own coverage, and after 2004 it is visibly not one.

An endorsement cannot give you coverage the policy excludes

This is the quiet one, and it undoes more collected endorsements than any wording argument. Additional-insured status makes you an insured under the sub's policy — which means you get that policy, with every exclusion it carries. If the underlying coverage does not respond, neither does your status in it.

The exclusions that bite in construction are specific and common. A residential or condominium exclusion — routine on policies written for trades that mostly do commercial work — means a perfect CG 20 37 gives you nothing on a condo conversion. Habitational, EIFS, subsidence and work above a stated height exclusions do the same job in their own niches. And a wrap-up exclusion removes coverage for work performed under an OCIP or CCIP, which is exactly the arrangement a large project uses — correct on an enrolled scope, and a hole anywhere else, as wrap-up insurance sets out.

None of this is visible on a certificate, and none of it is visible on the additional-insured endorsement either — the exclusions live on the policy those documents attach to. It is a question for the declarations page, or a direct one to the agent: does this policy carry any exclusion that would apply to the work we have contracted for? That question has saved more jobs than any limit ever negotiated.

Blanket vs scheduled — and the form number that decides whether it reaches you

A scheduled endorsement carries a schedule with your company typed on it. You can read the page and see yourself. A blanket endorsement names nobody: it grants additional-insured status automatically to whoever the named insured has agreed in a written contract to add. Blanket is faster and it is already in force the day the subcontract is signed, with no per-project request to chase.

The trade is where the proof lives. A blanket form grants nothing if there is no written agreement requiring it, or if the agreement was not executed before the loss — so it moves the burden off the carrier's paperwork and onto yours. With a scheduled endorsement the proof is a page an agent sends you; with a blanket one, the proof is your own signed subcontract, which means the contract file has to be as good as the certificate file.

Then there is the distinction that decides whether a blanket endorsement reaches you at all. CG 20 33 grants automatic status only to the party the named insured contracted with. So if your subcontractor hires a sub-subcontractor, and that sub-sub's policy carries CG 20 33, the automatic status runs to your subcontractor — not to you, because you have no written agreement with them. CG 20 38 is the form written for exactly that case: automatic status for other parties when required in a written construction agreement. On any tiered job, that is the form number worth asking for by name, and the forms reference sets it out beside the rest of what you collect.

Two things hold whichever you get. Both blanket forms cover ongoing operations, so completed operations still needs its own answer. And watch the edition date — the 04 13 editions limit your coverage to what your written contract requires and to the extent of the sub's own work, so the endorsement is only ever as strong as the subcontract behind it. Ask the agent for the endorsement copies and record the form numbers and editions, not just that AI status exists.

Hi [Agent name],

We're the general contractor on [Project]. Our subcontract with [Sub name] requires [Your company] to be named additional insured on their general liability policy for both ongoing and completed operations.

Could you send copies of the actual endorsements:
 - Ongoing operations — CG 20 10 (or a blanket form such as CG 20 33 / CG 20 38)
 - Completed operations — CG 20 37

showing they apply to [Your company]? We need the endorsement pages, not another certificate — the certificate's ADDL INSD box doesn't distinguish ongoing from completed operations.

Thanks,
[Your name], [Your company]