How to Fill Out a Certificate of Liability Insurance Form (ACORD 25)

To fill out an ACORD 25 Certificate of Liability Insurance, work top to bottom through four blocks: the producer and insured identification at the top, the insurers table, the coverage grid in the middle, and the Description of Operations and certificate holder sections at the bottom. Each field pulls directly from an active policy, so the form is really a transcription job with a few judgment calls in the open-text box. Below is what belongs in every section, in the order you encounter it on the page.

Information to Gather Before You Start

A clean certificate starts with having the right facts in front of you. Pull together:

  • The insured’s exact legal business name and address, matching the entity named in the contract or lease that triggered the request.
  • The declaration page of every policy that will appear on the certificate, so policy numbers, carrier names, effective and expiration dates, and limits are copied without error.
  • The NAIC number for each insurer, available on the policy or through the National Association of Insurance Commissioners.
  • The certificate holder’s full legal name and mailing address.
  • The specific insurance requirements from the contract, including any additional insured, waiver of subrogation, or primary and noncontributory language, and the endorsement form numbers that satisfy those requirements.

If the contract requires limits or endorsements the current policies do not carry, the underlying policy has to be modified first. The certificate reports what exists; it cannot add coverage.

Producer and Insured Boxes

The upper-left corner is the producer section. The producer is the insurance agent or brokerage that arranged the coverage and issues the certificate. Enter the agency’s name, street address, phone number, and the contact email of the person issuing the form.1ACORD. Forms FAQ

Directly below is the insured box. Use the legal entity name of the business or individual that owns the policies, and the business address. This name needs to match the entity named in the contract that prompted the request. A mismatch, even a small one, can cause the certificate holder to reject the form.2New York State Department of Financial Services. ACORD 25 Certificate of Liability Insurance Do not use an individual’s name here unless the policy is actually written to a sole proprietor as an individual.

Insurers Affording Coverage

Just to the right of the insured box is a short table where each carrier on the certificate gets a letter code: Insurer A, Insurer B, and so on. Enter the full legal name of each insurance company and its NAIC number, the unique identifier assigned by the National Association of Insurance Commissioners.2New York State Department of Financial Services. ACORD 25 Certificate of Liability Insurance Those letter codes are what tie each row of the coverage grid below to a specific carrier, so get them right before you move on.

The Coverage Grid

The middle of the form is a grid where each row represents one type of insurance. For every policy you include, enter the insurer letter code (A, B, C), the policy number, the effective date, the expiration date, and the applicable limits. Check the boxes that describe the policy, and leave fields completely blank when a coverage does not apply. Entries like “0,” “N/A,” or “None” in coverage limit fields are not standard and can create confusion about whether coverage exists.

Commercial General Liability

Check whether the policy is occurrence-based or claims-made, because the trigger for a covered event depends on that choice. Fill in the per-occurrence limit, the damage to rented premises limit, the medical expense limit, the personal and advertising injury limit, the general aggregate, and the products/completed operations aggregate. Contracts commonly require at least $1,000,000 per occurrence and $2,000,000 in the general aggregate, though your contract may specify different amounts.

Automobile Liability

Check the box that matches the policy’s scope: any auto, owned autos only, scheduled autos, hired autos, or non-owned autos. The combined single limit per accident is the main figure to enter, along with bodily injury and property damage limits if the policy reports them separately.

Umbrella or Excess Liability

Check whether the policy is an umbrella or excess form and whether it is occurrence-based or claims-made. Enter the per-occurrence and aggregate limits. This coverage sits above the underlying policies and responds after their limits are exhausted.

Workers’ Compensation and Employers’ Liability

For workers’ compensation, check the box indicating statutory limits, meaning whatever the state requires. For employers’ liability, enter three separate dollar limits: each accident, disease per employee, and disease policy limit.

Other Coverage

Professional liability (errors and omissions), cyber liability, pollution liability, and similar coverages do not have pre-printed rows on the standard form. Use the open rows at the bottom of the grid, label each one with the coverage type, and complete the same fields: insurer letter, policy number, dates, and limits. If a contract requires proof of professional liability, confirm the coverage appears on the certificate and that the limits and policy type are clearly stated.

Description of Operations, Locations, Vehicles

The large open-text box is where the certificate becomes specific to the deal at hand. This section trips people up more than any other, because contract-specific language goes here, and leaving it blank or filling it inaccurately can mean the certificate does not satisfy the contract.

Typical entries include:

  • The project name, job address, or contract number the certificate is being issued for.
  • A statement that a party is included as an additional insured, with the specific endorsement form number such as CG 20 10 (ongoing operations) or CG 20 37 (completed operations).
  • A note that a waiver of subrogation applies to specific policies, with the endorsement form number. The coverage grid also has a checkbox for subrogation waived; use it in conjunction with the detail here.
  • Primary and noncontributory language when the contract requires it.

Anything written in this section is informational. It does not create, extend, or amend coverage. If the underlying policy does not actually include a referenced endorsement, writing it in this box provides no legal protection to the holder. Reference endorsements only when they genuinely exist on the policy.

Certificate Holder Box and Signature

The certificate holder box in the lower-left corner takes the full legal name and mailing address of the party that requested proof of insurance, usually a general contractor, property owner, or client.3ACORD Corporation. ACORD 25 Certificate of Liability Insurance

The authorized representative of the producer signs the bottom-right of the form. The signature should match the contact information in the producer box at the top.

The Cancellation Section

The cancellation section on the current form reads: “Should any of the above described policies be cancelled before the expiration date thereof, notice will be delivered in accordance with the policy provisions.”3ACORD Corporation. ACORD 25 Certificate of Liability Insurance You do not fill in a number of days or alter this language. Whatever the actual policy says about cancellation notice is what governs. If the policy only requires notice to the named insured, the certificate holder may receive no advance warning when a policy is canceled. A holder that needs guaranteed notice should require a policy endorsement, not a note on the certificate.

Mistakes That Get a Certificate Rejected

  • Transposing digits in a policy number, or copying the wrong policy number into a row.
  • Effective or expiration dates that do not match the actual policy periods. Expired dates are one of the fastest ways to a rejection.
  • Filling in coverage fields for a policy type the insured does not actually carry. Leave those fields blank.
  • Using an individual’s name in the insured box instead of the business entity.
  • Treating the certificate holder as if being listed makes them an additional insured. It does not. Additional insured status requires a policy endorsement, and the Description of Operations section has to note that endorsement specifically.
  • Checking the waiver of subrogation box without confirming the policy actually carries that endorsement. That creates a misrepresentation on the certificate.
  • Wrong or missing NAIC numbers for any insurer listed.

What the Certificate Cannot Do

The disclaimer at the top of every ACORD 25 is worth reading before you finalize anything. The certificate is “issued as a matter of information only” and “does not constitute a contract between the issuing insurer(s), authorized representative or producer, and the certificate holder.” It “does not affirmatively or negatively amend, extend or alter the coverage afforded by the policies below.”2New York State Department of Financial Services. ACORD 25 Certificate of Liability Insurance The form itself also states that it “confers no rights upon the certificate holder.”3ACORD Corporation. ACORD 25 Certificate of Liability Insurance

This matters when you are filling the form out, because it sets the limit of what accurate completion can accomplish. If the policy says one thing and the certificate says another, the policy wins. Several states have laws that specifically prohibit altering the standard certificate language or using a certificate to create rights that do not exist in the underlying policy, with administrative penalties and cease-and-desist orders for violations. Complete the form to accurately mirror the policies in force, and address any additional contractual requirements through policy endorsements rather than certificate language.