Additional insured
An additional insured is a party added to another party’s policy by its terms or an endorsement. The endorsement—not a certificate—controls whether that party has coverage, for which claims, and on what conditions.
Additional insured is policy status, not a label someone can create by typing their name on a certificate. In Burlington Insurance Co. v. NYC Transit Authority, the policy listed the transit entities as additional insureds, but the court still had to interpret the endorsement’s causal requirement. The lesson is practical: read the endorsement and the contract together, then keep the issued endorsement with the certificate request.
Sources
- Primary source: Burlington Insurance Co. v. NYC Transit Authority — New York’s highest court interpreted an additional-insured endorsement and held that the wording at issue required injury proximately caused by the named insured.