Skip to main content
Sevrel
Request access

The CRE Almanac

Certificate of Insurance (COI)

Published 2026-08-11

A certificate of insurance (COI) is a summary document, issued by an insurance broker or carrier, showing that a policy exists — the named insured, coverage types, limits, policy period, and any additional insureds. Landlords collect COIs from tenants and vendors to confirm that the insurance the lease or contract requires is actually in place.

What a certificate is — and is not

A COI is evidence, not coverage. Most standard forms (the ACORD certificate is the one seen most often) say expressly that the certificate is issued for information only, confers no rights on the holder, and does not amend the policy. The coverage itself lives in the policy and its endorsements — so a certificate naming the landlord as an additional insured matters far less than the endorsement that actually adds the landlord to the policy. Sophisticated landlords ask for the endorsement, or at least for the endorsement number, alongside the certificate.

Who asks, and what varies

Leases typically require the tenant to deliver a COI at commencement and to keep coverage current through the term; property managers collect them from contractors and vendors before work starts; lenders require their own evidence at the asset level. What the certificate must show tracks the lease's insurance section, which varies deal to deal:

  • Commercial general liability limits, per occurrence and aggregate.
  • Property coverage for the tenant's improvements and contents.
  • Workers' compensation and employer's liability where applicable.
  • Umbrella or excess layers on larger requirements.
  • The precise additional-insured wording — landlord, property manager, and sometimes lender entities, named exactly.

The recurring failure modes are mundane: certificates that lapse mid-term, limits below what the lease requires, and additional-insured lines that name the wrong entity after a sale or an entity restructuring. Each is invisible until a claim makes it expensive.

In your documents

COIs arrive by email, in renewal batches, from dozens of brokers, and they only mean something when read against the insurance section of the particular lease. Keeping each certificate filed against the lease it supports means source-linked answers can put the certificate and the lease's requirement language side by side when someone asks whether a tenant's coverage matches what was promised.