You are not waiving your coverage. You are waiving your insurer's right to chase someone else.
Subrogation is your insurer stepping into your shoes after it pays a claim, so it can recover from whoever actually caused the loss. A waiver of subrogation gives that right up in advance, in writing, for a named party. It does not reduce what your policy pays you. It removes your carrier's ability to go after the general contractor, landlord, or owner who caused the damage — which is exactly why they ask for it.
CG 24 04. Workers' compensation uses WC 00 03 13, and that form only benefits parties named in its Schedule.Your equipment is destroyed on a jobsite because another trade's crew was careless. Your policy pays you. Your insurer, having paid, now owns your claim against the careless party and can sue them to get its money back. That is subrogation, and it is a standard feature of nearly every property and liability policy.
It is also the reason insurance stays priced where it is. Recoveries reduce net loss costs, and net loss costs drive rates.
A waiver of subrogation switches it off for a specific party. Your carrier agrees, in advance, that it will not pursue that party even if that party caused the loss.
Put yourself on the general contractor's side of the table. They have twenty subcontractors on a project. Each of those subs carries insurance. Without waivers, every loss on that site is a potential recovery action against the GC by somebody's carrier — the sub gets paid, and then the GC spends a year litigating with an insurer it has no contract with.
Requiring waivers from every sub converts that mess into a known quantity. The same logic applies to a landlord requiring one from a tenant, or an owner requiring one from a general contractor.
It is a reasonable ask. It is also a real transfer of value, and it should be priced and documented rather than promised on a certificate and forgotten.
| Line | Form | What it says |
|---|---|---|
| General liability | CG 24 04 | Waiver Of Transfer Of Rights Of Recovery Against Others To Us. Waives the carrier's transfer-of-rights condition as to the person or organization scheduled, for work performed for them. |
| Workers' compensation | WC 00 03 13 | Waiver Of Our Right To Recover From Others Endorsement. “We will not enforce our right against the person or organization named in the Schedule.” It adds: “This agreement shall not operate directly or indirectly to benefit anyone not named in the Schedule.” |
That last sentence in the workers' compensation form is the one to read twice. A waiver naming your general contractor benefits your general contractor. It does not quietly benefit the owner, the construction manager, or anyone else in the chain. If the contract requires the waiver to run to multiple parties, they all have to be scheduled — or the endorsement has to be a blanket version that picks up anyone you have agreed in writing to waive against.
Blanket versus scheduled is worth asking about at renewal rather than job by job. A blanket waiver endorsement covers everyone you have a written agreement with, which for an active contractor is dramatically less administrative work than issuing a scheduled endorsement per project. Not every carrier offers one on every class.
On general liability, a waiver is often included in a broadening endorsement at no separate charge, or costs very little.
On workers' compensation it is usually a percentage surcharge, applied either to the payroll for the specific job or to the policy, depending on the state's rules and whether the waiver is scheduled or blanket. It is not large, but it is not free, and it is a legitimate line item to account for when you price a job that requires one.
What genuinely costs money is discovering at audit that waivers were issued all year on jobs nobody reported.
Standard policy conditions require you not to do anything after a loss that impairs the insurer's rights of recovery. Before a loss, you are generally free to waive them by written agreement — and that freedom is what the endorsement documents.
The consequence is simple and unforgiving. A waiver agreed after the loss is not effective, and worse, agreeing to one may itself breach a policy condition. If a claim has occurred on a job where the contract required a waiver you never actually obtained, do not sign anything. Call us first.
The same logic explains why a certificate that says “waiver of subrogation applies” is worth checking rather than trusting. The certificate reports the endorsement. If the endorsement was never issued, the certificate is wrong, and the sentence on it does not create the waiver.
This page explains how these endorsements and contract terms generally work. It is not a coverage opinion. What your policy actually covers is decided by the policy language, the endorsement editions actually attached, and the contract you signed — all of which we are happy to read. Send us the requirements or call (704) 461-3020.