The cheapest risk to insure is the one your contract already moved to someone else.
Why It Matters
Most of the liability a business carries is not assigned by law — it is assigned by contract. Every lease you sign, every subcontractor you hire, every master service agreement a customer puts in front of you quietly decides who pays when something goes wrong. Done well, contractual risk transfer pushes a loss onto the party best able to control and insure it. Done carelessly, it does the opposite: you accept an indemnity obligation broader than any policy will cover, or you require a vendor to protect you and never confirm they actually did.
This is where uninsured losses are born — not in a coverage gap on your own policy, but in a clause that made someone else's loss yours, or a transfer you thought you had and never verified.
Contract Review & Risk-Transfer Language
We review the risk-bearing language in your inbound and outbound contracts — leases, subcontracts, vendor and supplier agreements, customer MSAs, and purchase orders — and tell you plainly what each one does to your exposure. The review covers indemnification and hold-harmless scope, additional insured requirements and the difference between ongoing-operations and completed-operations forms, waiver of subrogation, primary and non-contributory wording, limits-of-insurance requirements, and the contractual liability your own general liability policy will and will not pick up.
We then draft the insurance specifications your contracts should require of others — and confirm the coverage you carry can actually satisfy what you are agreeing to.
Inbound Compliance — Holding Others to What They Promised
A requirement in a contract is worthless if no one verifies it was met. We build and run the process that collects, reads, and tracks the certificates and endorsements from every party you require to insure you — subcontractors, vendors, tenants, franchisees — and flags the gaps that matter: missing additional-insured endorsements, insufficient limits, lapsed or non-renewed policies, and carriers that no longer meet your standard. The point is simple: the transfer you negotiated has to still be standing on the day a claim lands.
Outbound Compliance — Meeting Your Own Obligations
The same discipline runs the other way. Your clients, landlords, and lenders impose insurance requirements on you, and failing to meet them is a breach of contract that can cost you the account or the loan long before any loss occurs. We make sure certificates go out correctly and on time, that your program actually delivers the endorsements you have promised, and that you are never quietly out of compliance on a contract you depend on. When you need one fast, we also handle certificate issuance directly.
The Gotcha
A certificate of insurance confers no coverage. It is evidence, not a grant — only the endorsement attached to the policy actually extends protection to you. Businesses collect certificates by the drawerful and feel protected, then discover at claim time that the additional-insured endorsement the certificate described was never issued. Chasing paper while never verifying the endorsement behind it is the most common, and most expensive, false comfort in commercial risk.
What We Deliver
- A contract risk-transfer review memo on each agreement, in plain English
- Insurance specifications and required-endorsement schedules for your contracts
- A running inbound compliance process — certificate and endorsement tracking with gap and lapse alerts
- Outbound certificate issuance and obligation monitoring so you are never in silent breach
- A standing review cadence as contracts, vendors, and renewals change
The Rest of the Practice
Loss Control & Workplace Safety
Prevent the claim rather than finance it — engineering losses out of your operations and building the documented safety culture underwriters actually reward.
Explore →Active Claims Management & Advocacy
When a loss happens, put an experienced advocate on your side of the table — managing the claim from first notice to final recovery and holding the carrier to the policy it sold you.
Explore →Strategic Analytics & Business Planning
Treat the risk program as a data asset — making retention, limit, and structure decisions on evidence, and aligning the whole program to where the business is actually going.
Explore →All insurance descriptions on this website are provided by Cory Washington & Co. LLC strictly for general informational purposes. They are not intended to be, and should not be relied upon as, legal, financial, or insurance advice. The information presented is general in nature and does not guarantee the availability, terms, conditions, or scope of any insurance coverage. Actual coverage is determined solely by the specific policy language issued by the insurer and remains subject to underwriting approval. Nothing on this website creates or implies an agent-client relationship, binds coverage, or alters any existing policy. Cory Washington & Co. LLC expressly disclaims any liability for actions taken, or not taken, based on the content provided here. For advice regarding your particular situation, please consult directly with a licensed insurance professional at Cory Washington & Co. LLC or another qualified insurance professional, and always review your policy documents in full.