The vendor file
One file per company, read at every address.
The folder of certificates is somebody’s job at every business that owns more than one building, and it is nobody’s title. It goes stale quietly: a policy runs out in April and the first anybody hears of it is when a guest slips in November. Here the paperwork belongs to the company that filed it, so it is read once and then measured against whatever each of your locations asks for.
One company’s file
Read once, used at every address
- Its insurance certificatesRead once, held with the date each runs to
- The credential its trade requiresRead the same way
- Its W-9Collected and verified
- The trades it is cleared forSet by what it has filed
- The limits each of your addresses asks it forMeasured per address
A painter cleared for the hotel is already cleared for the restaurants asking for the same limits, and is told in dollars what it is short of where an address asks for more.
Your figures
The lines you can put a number against, per trade.
These are the names the request prints them under, so what a company reads is what you set. The column beside each one is blank on purpose: the figure is yours, and no default is offered, because the number that matters is the one already written into your own agreements.
You set the coverage limits you require, often the number your own insurer or lender asks for. A vendor whose recorded coverage falls below one of them cannot propose on your work until it is raised.
Different trades, different numbers.
The limit you want behind a company spraying a facade is not the limit you want behind one waxing a lobby, and it is not the limit you want behind one driving mowers around a parking lot. Each trade carries its own set.
Required and preferred are separate settings.
A required line stops a company that falls under it. A preferred line lets them through and tells you the gap, which is what you want for the line you would like without losing a company you rate over it.
The cover you require
Your figures, per trade
- General liability (per occurrence)
- General liability (aggregate)
- Workers' comp / employer's liability
- Auto liability
- Umbrella / excess
- Professional liability
- Pollution liability
- Crime / employee dishonesty
Umbrella, pollution and crime are the lines people skip and then wish they had not. Pollution covers a spill or a release; crime covers theft by somebody who was given access.
The rulebook
What each trade has to put on record.
Each row below is a document a trade has to put on record, with what the document itself has to show. Most of them decide whether a company may send you a price at all. The W-9 sits alongside them and is read the same way: it is the tax form your accounts team wants on file.
What every company files, by the work it does
The rulebook itself
| The work | The document | What it is for | What it has to show |
|---|---|---|---|
| Landscaping & grounds | Auto liability | Decides who may propose | The certificate covering the vehicles the crew arrives in, with the date the policy runs out. |
| Landscaping & grounds | General liability | Decides who may propose | The certificate, with the coverage limits your own minimums are checked against and the date the policy runs out. |
| Landscaping & grounds | W-9 | Collected and verified | A signed W-9 carrying the company’s legal name and taxpayer number. |
| Landscaping & grounds | Workers’ compensation | Decides who may propose | The certificate covering the company’s own crew, with the date the policy runs out. |
| Pool cleaning | General liability | Decides who may propose | The certificate, with the coverage limits your own minimums are checked against and the date the policy runs out. |
| Pool cleaning | CPO certification | Decides who may propose | The card carries the date it expires. |
| Pool cleaning | W-9 | Collected and verified | A signed W-9 carrying the company’s legal name and taxpayer number. |
| Pool cleaning | Workers’ compensation | Decides who may propose | The certificate covering the company’s own crew, with the date the policy runs out. |
| Porter, janitorial & floor care | Background check | Decides who may propose | The completed check, with the date it was run and the date it runs out. |
| Porter, janitorial & floor care | General liability | Decides who may propose | The certificate, with the coverage limits your own minimums are checked against and the date the policy runs out. |
| Porter, janitorial & floor care | W-9 | Collected and verified | A signed W-9 carrying the company’s legal name and taxpayer number. |
| Porter, janitorial & floor care | Workers’ compensation | Decides who may propose | The certificate covering the company’s own crew, with the date the policy runs out. |
| Gate guards, pool and site attendants | Background check | Decides who may propose | The completed check, with the date it was run and the date it runs out. |
| Gate guards, pool and site attendants | General liability | Decides who may propose | The certificate, with the coverage limits your own minimums are checked against and the date the policy runs out. |
| Gate guards, pool and site attendants | W-9 | Collected and verified | A signed W-9 carrying the company’s legal name and taxpayer number. |
| Gate guards, pool and site attendants | Workers’ compensation | Decides who may propose | The certificate covering the company’s own crew, with the date the policy runs out. |
| Gate guards, pool and site attendantswhen it puts lifeguards on a deck | Lifeguard certification | Decides who may propose | The certification carries the date it expires. |
| Pest control | General liability | Decides who may propose | The certificate, with the coverage limits your own minimums are checked against and the date the policy runs out. |
| Pest control | Pest control license | Decides who may propose | The state license to treat a building for termites, rodents and wood-destroying organisms, with the date it expires. |
| Pest control | W-9 | Collected and verified | A signed W-9 carrying the company’s legal name and taxpayer number. |
| Pest control | Workers’ compensation | Decides who may propose | The certificate covering the company’s own crew, with the date the policy runs out. |
| HVAC | General liability | Decides who may propose | The certificate, with the coverage limits your own minimums are checked against and the date the policy runs out. |
| HVAC | EPA 608 certification | Decides who may propose | The federal certification required to handle refrigerants under EPA Section 608. It carries no expiration date. |
| HVAC | W-9 | Collected and verified | A signed W-9 carrying the company’s legal name and taxpayer number. |
| HVAC | Workers’ compensation | Decides who may propose | The certificate covering the company’s own crew, with the date the policy runs out. |
| Electrical | General liability | Decides who may propose | The certificate, with the coverage limits your own minimums are checked against and the date the policy runs out. |
| Electrical | Electrical contractor license | Decides who may propose | The state license to perform electrical work as a company, with the date it expires. |
| Electrical | W-9 | Collected and verified | A signed W-9 carrying the company’s legal name and taxpayer number. |
| Electrical | Workers’ compensation | Decides who may propose | The certificate covering the company’s own crew, with the date the policy runs out. |
| Painting | General liability | Decides who may propose | The certificate, with the coverage limits your own minimums are checked against and the date the policy runs out. |
| Painting | W-9 | Collected and verified | A signed W-9 carrying the company’s legal name and taxpayer number. |
| Painting | Workers’ compensation | Decides who may propose | The certificate covering the company’s own crew, with the date the policy runs out. |
A proposal row is read when a company answers a request, and read again when that company is sent to a site. Every document here is read by a person rather than counted as a filename.
Some rows have a renewal window and some have none.
An insurance certificate that lapses has 30 days to come back before the company is blocked. A license or a certification has no window at all: an expired license is not a license, and a background check that has run out is not a background check. One credential carries no expiration date at all, because the federal certification behind it does not expire.
Business registration is collected and read, and it decides nothing.
A person still reads it, so it would be an overclaim in the other direction to leave it out. It is simply not one of the rows above, and no company is stopped by it.
The part that actually bites
A date going past is the failure nobody notices.
Nothing in a folder tells you it has expired. That is why the dates are held with the documents rather than beside them, and why the check runs on its own rather than when somebody remembers to look.
Insurance and trade credentials verified, expiration dates tracked, and a lapse pauses new proposals and new work.
What a lapse actually stops.
The company cannot answer new requests and cannot be sent to a location until the certificate is current again. Work already under way is what this never touches: a contract in progress finishes and the record is filed.
You are not the one chasing it.
The company is told what is missing and files the new certificate against its own record. Nobody at your end writes the email that starts “sorry to bother you again”. What is checked, in full.
The answers
A line is read, and the reading is never just yes or no.
Every answer a coverage line can come back with is beside this paragraph. A pair of them are worth knowing before you set anything, because they are the ones people assume do not exist.
What a line comes back as
Every answer the check can give
- Clears the lineThe recorded amount is at or above the figure you asked for.
- Under the figureThe company carries the line but not enough of it, and is told the difference in dollars.
- Nothing recordedThe company has filed nothing against a line you asked for.
- Ran outA policy that lapsed yesterday buys you nothing today, so it fails with its own reason.
- Not read yetAn uploaded file nobody has read is not evidence. It counts once a person has read it.
- Short on a preferred lineYou marked this one preferred rather than required, so it is reported to you and the company can still answer.
Only the lines you marked required stop a company answering. The rest are told to you and left to your judgment.
An uploaded file is not a verified file.
A document that nobody has read counts for nothing, however tidy the folder looks. It becomes evidence when a person has read it and recorded what it says.
A policy in date can still fall short.
Current and adequate are different questions. The recorded amount is compared against your own figure rather than against the fact that a certificate exists at all, and a company under the line is told the difference in dollars.
Before you ask
Nothing in this is counted per location.
Holding the files, reading them, setting your figures and being told when one lapses are not metered. Opening another address raises nothing, and neither does the one after that. There is no tier that unlocks the folder.
One thing on this side is bought rather than given, and it is optional: Roster Watch re-checks the companies you already use on its own schedule, so a policy that runs out reaches you before the next time somebody opens the folder. What that costs is on the pricing page, which is where every figure on this platform belongs.