Your cert program provides the appearance of protection. Coverage counsel finds the reality.
Cert managers approve certificates because they look right. Coverage counsel approves nothing—they wait until a seven-figure bodily injury claim occurs, open the policy endorsements, and deny defense. FailSafe conducts adversarial policy inspection before subcontractors set foot on the jobsite.
“FailSafe and coverage counsel are looking for the same things in the same documents. The difference is when they find them and whose interest they serve.”
The Reality Check Simulator
Inspect an actual subcontractor submission for Summit Structural Steel LLC. See what standard tracking tools see versus what FailSafe uncovers.
ACORD 25 Certificate Face
Schedule of Forms & Endorsement Audit
“Exclusion — Bodily injury to any employee of any insured arising out of and in the course of employment.”
The Legal Reality: This Third-Party Action Over exclusion eliminates coverage when the subcontractor's ironworker falls on your jobsite and sues you. Demands routinely exceed $3,000,000.
Your additional insured status is completely worthless for the most expensive claim type in construction.
The 5 Fatal Gaps Found in Real Subcontractor Policies
These are not hypothetical scenarios. They are exclusions found in policies that looked completely compliant on the ACORD certificate and were signed off by traditional cert managers.
The Residential / Tract Exclusion
Lives on page 3 or 4 of the Schedule of Forms. Carriers exclude tract homes, developments over 10 units, or condominiums. The single most common gap found and closed for homebuilders.
Third Party Action Over Exclusion
Eliminates bodily injury defense for lawsuits by your subcontractor's own employees—the #1 most expensive construction claim. A cert can look 100% compliant while this exclusion nullifies defense.
The Subsidence & Soils Exclusion
Standard in excavation and earthwork policies. Excludes trench collapse, foundation cracking, and soil movement. Being an additional insured on a policy that excludes the claim type provides zero protection.
Dangerous Cross Suits Clause
While named-insured-vs-named-insured is standard, deceptive versions exclude claims between a named insured and an additional insured. It completely bars you from tendering against your sub.
Completed Operations Sunset Gap
Packaged AI endorsements include ongoing operations but silently drop completed operations. Under statutes of repose (e.g. 8 years in Arizona), you are left completely exposed after project completion.
Adversarial Policy Inspection
FailSafe reads policies the way coverage counsel reads them: looking for every weakness. Every submission is analyzed against legal databases before subcontractors touch the jobsite.
Automated Coverage Defense for Every Project
Replace manual spreadsheet tracking and generic cert portals with an automated legal firewall.
Dedicated Broker Ingestion
Each corporate entity receives a dedicated certificate inbox powered by the FailSafe Email System. Brokers email certificates directly; FailSafe automatically matches the trade partner and creates an intake record.
Adversarial Policy Analysis
AI extraction parses the ACORD 25 and audits attached ISO and manuscript endorsement forms against your specific project standards, hunting for the 5 fatal coverage gaps.
Automated Deficiency Routing
When deficiencies or fatal exclusions are detected, FailSafe immediately drafts an itemized remediation notice with the exact ISO form numbers required and sends it to the broker.
General Contractor Compliance Command
Built for General Contractor Risk Managers, Project Executives, and Field Superintendents. Ingest certificates, audit endorsement schedules across multiple jobs, and resolve coverage gaps.