What does a waiver of subrogation mean for a contractor?

Key takeaways

• A waiver addresses the insurer's recovery rights (in the ISO CGL, the Transfer of Rights of Recovery Against Others to Us condition, waived by endorsement CG 24 04); it does not grant additional-insured status or promise defense.
• The waiver request may apply to general liability, workers' compensation, property, or another line with different forms and conditions.
• Read the contract and actual endorsement together, including exceptions for intentional acts, unpaid premiums, or prohibited waivers where applicable.
• A certificate notation is not a substitute for the endorsement: ACORD states that a certificate does not amend, extend, or alter coverage and that only an endorsement, rider, or amendment changes it.
• An effective waiver needs both a waiver in the contract and the insurer's agreement in the policy; state anti-indemnity, workers' compensation, public-contract, and other rules may affect enforceability and require counsel.

Understand the limited function of a waiver

Subrogation is an insurer's potential right to pursue a responsible party after paying a covered loss. A waiver can limit that recovery against a named party when the policy and endorsement permit it. It does not erase the underlying contract, change who caused an event, add a party as an insured, or guarantee that a loss is covered.

The request can appear in an owner-GC contract, subcontract, lease, lender requirement, or project insurance program. Start by identifying the actual parties and the line of coverage. A waiver attached to a property or builders-risk policy is not necessarily the same as a waiver attached to general liability or workers' compensation.

In the ISO commercial general liability policy the right at issue is the condition titled Transfer of Rights of Recovery Against Others to Us, and the standard waiver endorsement is CG 24 04, Waiver of Transfer of Rights of Recovery Against Others to Us. In the 05 09 edition the insurer waives its right of recovery against the person or organization shown in the schedule for payments made because of injury or damage arising out of the named insured's ongoing operations or 'your work' done under a contract with that person and included in the products-completed operations hazard; the waiver applies only to the scheduled party, and it is the insurer's right, not the named insured's own rights, that is waived. The December 2019 revision removed the 'under a contract with that person or organization' phrase, conditioned the insurer's waiver on the insured's own pre-loss waiver of claims, and added an automatic version, CG 24 53. Workers' compensation uses its own endorsement (WC 00 03 13) and the business auto policy uses its own (CA 04 44), so one 'waiver' line on a certificate can stand for three different forms.

Sources for this section: International Risk Management Institute (IRMI): Subrogation and the CGL Policy (Craig Stanovich, December 2013); Missouri Farm Bureau Insurance (carrier-posted copy of the ISO form): CG 24 04 05 09, Waiver of Transfer of Rights of Recovery Against Others to Us; Saxe Doernberger & Vita (SDV Fenchurch): The 2019 ISO Forms: Additions, Revisions, and Pitfalls (December 2019); City of Sierra Madre, California: Acceptable waiver-of-subrogation endorsements (CG 24 04 and WC 00 03 13 reproduced); City of Riverside, California: Sample certificate package: ACORD 25 with CG 20 26 04 13, CG 24 04 05 09, CG 20 01 04 13, CA 04 44, and workers compensation waiver endorsements.

Keep waiver, indemnity, and insured status separate

Indemnity is a contractual allocation of responsibility. Additional-insured status is a policy grant that may provide defense or indemnity for qualifying allegations. Primary and noncontributory wording addresses coordination with other insurance. A waiver concerns recovery rights. One does not automatically provide the others.

Use a requirement table that lists each requested protection separately. If an owner wants to be an additional insured, receive a waiver, have the contractor's policy respond first, and obtain completed-operations protection, each request needs its own contract and policy evidence. An endorsement may address more than one concept, but the title alone is not proof.

The distinction matters because insurers have subrogated against additional insureds in situations a certificate does not reveal: an additional-insured endorsement limited to ongoing operations (CG 20 10 without CG 20 37) leaves a completed-operations loss open to recovery; the 2019 ISO limits wording confines the additional insured's protection to the amount the contract required, so a loss above it can be pursued; and an umbrella without additional-insured status, a workers' compensation policy, or a professional liability policy is not reached by a CGL grant at all. An effective waiver therefore needs both a waiver in the contract and the insurer's agreement in each affected policy.

Sources for this section: International Risk Management Institute (IRMI): Additional Insured Status and Waivers of Subrogation (Mark Bell, January 2022).

Check the endorsement and conditions

Obtain the actual waiver endorsement, schedule, edition, policy period, and applicable line. Check whether it is blanket or scheduled, whether a written contract must exist before loss, who is listed, whether it applies to a specific project or operations, and whether the endorsement contains conditions or exceptions. Confirm that the umbrella or excess layer does not narrow the requested protection.

Do not edit a certificate to state that a waiver exists. ACORD's certificate guidance states that a certificate is not a policy and that only an endorsement, rider, or amendment changes coverage, so a 'waiver of subrogation' notation in the description box is a report, not the waiver. Ask the broker or carrier to resolve a missing or narrower form and keep the written response with the project file. Whether a contractual waiver is enforceable in a particular state or context is a legal question.

Sources for this section: Missouri Farm Bureau Insurance (carrier-posted copy of the ISO form): CG 24 04 05 09, Waiver of Transfer of Rights of Recovery Against Others to Us; Saxe Doernberger & Vita (SDV Fenchurch): The 2019 ISO Forms: Additions, Revisions, and Pitfalls (December 2019); ACORD: Certificates of Insurance: Frequently Asked Questions.

Plan for claims and closeout

A waiver does not eliminate prompt-notice, cooperation, mitigation, or record-preservation duties. After an incident, notify potentially involved insurers as the policies require, preserve the contract and work records, and do not assume that a waiver decides fault or coverage. Counsel should address tender, allocation, and any dispute over the scope of the waiver.

Retain the executed contract, project schedule, endorsement, certificate, policy, loss information, completion records, and correspondence for the period directed by the contract and applicable law. The file should show exactly which party, project, line, and policy period was reviewed.

Four frequently confused requirements

Sources for this section: International Risk Management Institute (IRMI): Additional Insured Status and Waivers of Subrogation (Mark Bell, January 2022); International Risk Management Institute (IRMI): Subrogation and the CGL Policy (Craig Stanovich, December 2013).

Waiver-of-subrogation review

• Identify the requesting party, protected party, project, operation, line, and policy period.
• Separate waiver, indemnity, additional-insured, primary, and completed-operations requests.
• Obtain the actual endorsement and check blanket or scheduled status and written-contract conditions.
• Compare primary, umbrella, workers' compensation, property, and builders-risk treatment as applicable.
• Document exceptions in writing and obtain qualified legal review of state or public-contract issues.
• Preserve the signed contract, endorsement, certificate, policy, loss records, and closeout file.

Hypothetical: Hypothetical — waiver after a water loss

A GC and owner both waive recovery rights for a project, but the GC's certificate only says “waiver of subrogation” without identifying the property policy or endorsement. After a water loss, the parties cannot infer the waiver's scope from the notation. They must review the actual policy and endorsement, contract, loss facts, and applicable law.

Sources

• Missouri Farm Bureau Insurance (carrier-posted copy of the ISO form): CG 24 04 05 09, Waiver of Transfer of Rights of Recovery Against Others to Us — accessed 2026-10-18; supports the May 2009 edition of CG 24 04: the insurer waives its right of recovery against the scheduled person or organization for payments made for injury or damage arising out of the named insured's ongoing operations or "your work" done under a contract with that person and included in the products-completed operations hazard, and the waiver applies only to the scheduled party..
• City of Sierra Madre, California: Acceptable waiver-of-subrogation endorsements (CG 24 04 and WC 00 03 13 reproduced) — accessed 2026-10-18; supports a public owner's example of the CGL waiver endorsement (CG 24 04, added to the Transfer of Rights of Recovery Against Others to Us condition) and the separate workers compensation waiver endorsement (WC 00 03 13), showing that each line of coverage waives through its own form..
• City of Riverside, California: Sample certificate package: ACORD 25 with CG 20 26 04 13, CG 24 04 05 09, CG 20 01 04 13, CA 04 44, and workers compensation waiver endorsements — accessed 2026-10-18; supports the ACORD 25 certificate's own notice that it is issued as a matter of information only, confers no rights on the certificate holder, does not amend, extend, or alter the policies, and that additional-insured status or a waiver of subrogation requires a policy endorsement; the package also reproduces CG 20 01 04 13, which makes the CGL primary and noncontributory toward other insurance on which the additional insured is a named insured only where the named insured agreed to that in a written contract, and shows that the general liability, auto, and workers compensation waivers are separate endorsements..
• ACORD: Certificates of Insurance: Frequently Asked Questions — accessed 2026-10-18; supports ACORD's statement that a certificate of insurance is not an insurance policy and does not provide, endorse, amend, extend, or alter policy terms; only an endorsement, rider, or amendment to the policy changes coverage, and a reference to a contract on a certificate does not provide coverage..
• International Risk Management Institute (IRMI): Subrogation and the CGL Policy (Craig Stanovich, December 2013) — accessed 2026-10-18; supports that the CGL policy's operative wording is the Transfer of Rights of Recovery Against Others to Us condition, that the waiver endorsement is titled Waiver of Transfer of Rights of Recovery Against Others to Us (CG 24 04 05 09), and that under it only the insurer, not the named insured, waives rights of recovery against the scheduled party..
• International Risk Management Institute (IRMI): Additional Insured Status and Waivers of Subrogation (Mark Bell, January 2022) — accessed 2026-10-18; supports that a waiver of subrogation and additional-insured status are different devices; that an effective waiver needs both a waiver in the contract and the insurer's agreement in the policy; and the situations in which insurers have subrogated against additional insureds, including ongoing-operations-only endorsements (CG 20 10 versus CG 20 37), losses above the contractually required limits under the 2019 ISO limits wording, excess or umbrella policies without additional-insured status, workers compensation and professional liability policies, and states whose law voids insuring another party's negligence..
• Saxe Doernberger & Vita (SDV Fenchurch): The 2019 ISO Forms: Additions, Revisions, and Pitfalls (December 2019) — accessed 2026-10-18; supports the December 2019 ISO revisions: the restated limits wording in the additional-insured endorsements including CG 20 10 and CG 20 37, the new automatic completed-operations additional-insured endorsements CG 20 39 and CG 20 40 and their written-contract condition, and the revised CG 24 04 and new automatic waiver endorsement CG 24 53..
• U.S. Federal Acquisition Regulation: FAR 52.228-5, Insurance—Work on a Government Installation — accessed 2026-09-13; supports A federal contract clause example showing that government contracts can specify insurance obligations; the particular solicitation and contract control..