Is your roofer really insured? And do they even know?

An open roof. A storm that wasn't in the forecast. Water through the deck, and a loss that climbed into the hundreds of thousands of dollars. The roofer was insured — a real policy, a $1,000,000 limit printed on the certificate everyone had on file. What that policy will pay toward the damage that mattered: fifty thousand dollars.

That gap is the whole subject here. A certificate of insurance proves a policy exists. It does not prove the policy will pay your claim. Those are two different things, and the distance between them is where commercial property owners get hurt.

A roofer can hand you a certificate showing $1,000,000 in general liability coverage — current, legitimate, paid in full — while the policy underneath it quietly caps the claim that matters at a fraction of that number, or excludes it altogether. The certificate won't tell you. It isn't built to. The temptation is to assume this is common knowledge that only the unsophisticated miss. It isn't. It routinely surprises experienced owners, facilities teams, and even professional risk managers. If it's new to you, you're in good company.

Here's what's actually going on beneath the certificate.

01"Insured" and "covered" are not the same word

A general liability policy is not a promise to pay. It's a coverage form, plus definitions, plus conditions, plus a stack of exclusions and endorsements that can narrow the coverage dramatically before any work begins. The limit on the certificate — say, $1,000,000 per occurrence — is the ceiling, not the floor. Everything below it is decided by the forms most people never read.

In roofing, those forms tend to break precisely where the risk concentrates.

02The open-roof water exclusion

The most predictable loss in roofing is water entering an open roof. Tear-off exposes the deck, the weather shifts, and water gets into the building. Some roofing policies contain language that can limit or exclude that loss.

A given policy might exclude open-roof water damage outright. Another might keep the coverage but condition it on safeguards the contractor has to prove after the fact — adequate tarping, proper dry-in, documentation. The most restrictive wording can remove coverage even when the contractor did everything right.

Under language like that, a crew can tarp correctly, watch the tarp fail in a storm, and still recover nothing for the resulting water damage. The most foreseeable loss in the trade, written out of the policy.

Better-drafted policies include a genuine safe harbor: the exclusion does not apply if the exposed roof is covered with adequate waterproof material and securely fastened to prevent damage. Same category of endorsement, opposite result. That difference can be worth six figures — and it is invisible on a certificate.

03The subcontractor sublimit and warranty

Most roofing work runs through subcontractors. Carriers manage that exposure two ways, and the two get confused constantly.

A subcontractor sublimit caps any claim arising out of subcontracted work at a fixed, far lower number. This is how a $1,000,000 certificate sits on top of a real ceiling of $50,000: if a sub did the work, the sublimit — not the limit — controls.

A subcontractor warranty doesn't cut the dollars; it conditions the coverage on paperwork — signed contracts, proof the sub carries adequate limits, additional-insured status, waivers, all collected before the loss. Penalties for falling short range from a higher deductible to a true "hammer clause" that erases coverage for anything tied to that sub's work. The spread between policies is enormous, and you need to know which one you're relying on.

04The work has to match the policy

A policy covers only the operations it was classified and priced for. A contractor working outside that lane — taking on a building type or scope the policy didn't contemplate — can fall outside coverage entirely. No sublimit required; the work simply isn't the work the policy was written for. On larger or specialized commercial buildings, "is this contractor's policy even rated for this job?" stops being a technicality and becomes the question that decides the claim.

05The certificate blind spot

This is the center of the problem. A certificate of insurance shows limits. It does not show exclusions, sublimits, endorsement conditions, or classification limits. So a certificate can read "$1,000,000" while the policy excludes open-roof water, caps subcontractor claims, restricts building types, or hinges on paperwork nobody collected.

That isn't a loophole — it's how certificates function. Which puts the burden on whoever's reading it to ask for more.

06Why these policies read this way

A meaningful share of roofing coverage — particularly for trades carriers consider higher-hazard — is written in the surplus-lines (excess-and-surplus) market by non-admitted carriers. One such policy states on its own first page that the insurer is "not licensed to transact insurance in this state," that the coverage is surplus line, and that the state insurance department "does not audit the finances or review the solvency" of the carrier.

That matters twice. Surplus-lines forms generally aren't filed and approved by the state the way standard policies are — which is exactly why such aggressive, custom-drafted exclusions can exist. And surplus-lines coverage typically isn't backed by the state guaranty fund that stands behind admitted insurers. None of this makes the coverage illegitimate or the carrier dishonest. It makes the fine print the product. On these policies, the endorsement schedule isn't a footnote — it's the coverage.

07What to ask before you sign

Stop treating the certificate as the finish line. Before a roofing contract is signed, ask for more than a COI:

• The declarations page and the full endorsement schedule — every form on the policy, not a summary.
• In writing: Does this policy contain an open-roof or water-intrusion exclusion or condition, and what exactly does it require?
• In writing: Is there a subcontractor sublimit or warranty? If a sub performs my work, what limit actually applies?
• In writing: Is my building type and scope of work within the policy's classified operations?
• On any building that matters, have the forms read by someone whose job is reading forms — your broker, your advisor, or a contractor who already does.

Almost none of this is hidden. It's just unread — and the questions that decide your loss are worth the five minutes it takes to ask them.

We'd rather you know.