What Is a Blanket Waiver of Subrogation? Meaning, Forms and How to Verify It

Last updated July 2026.

A blanket waiver of subrogation is a single policy endorsement that waives your insurer's right to recover against any party you have agreed in a written contract to waive, without naming each one separately. A scheduled waiver, by contrast, lists specific parties one at a time. On a certificate of insurance, blanket wording is what lets one endorsement satisfy dozens of contracts at once.

If you require certificates of insurance from vendors, subcontractors or tenants, the words blanket waiver of subrogation show up in the description of operations box constantly, and whether the waiver is blanket or scheduled decides whether the party in front of you is actually covered. Here is what the term means, which forms carry it on general liability and workers compensation, and how to confirm it is real rather than typed onto a certificate.

What is a blanket waiver of subrogation?

A blanket waiver of subrogation is an endorsement that gives up the insurer's right of recovery against every person or organization the policyholder is required by written contract to waive, all through one blanket grant rather than a named list. Subrogation is the insurer's right, after it pays a claim, to step into your shoes and sue whoever caused the loss. A waiver removes that right for the protected party, so your insurer cannot turn around and pursue the customer, landlord or general contractor you agreed to protect.

The word blanket describes the scope. Instead of adding a line to the policy every time you sign a new contract, a blanket endorsement covers all qualifying parties automatically the moment the written agreement requiring the waiver is in place. That is why it is the version most contracts and lease clauses ask for.

What does a blanket waiver of subrogation mean on a certificate of insurance?

On a certificate of insurance, a blanket waiver of subrogation means the vendor's policy already contains an endorsement that waives recovery against anyone the vendor is contractually obligated to protect, so it applies to you automatically once your contract requires it. It is a convenience: the vendor does not have to request a new named waiver for your specific job. The catch is that the certificate is not the endorsement. The description of operations box may read waiver of subrogation applies per blanket endorsement, but that line is typed by whoever issued the certificate and does not prove the blanket wording is actually on the policy or that your contract meets its trigger.

Blanket waiver of subrogation vs scheduled waiver

The difference is how the protected parties are identified. A scheduled waiver lists each person or organization by name in a schedule on the endorsement. A blanket waiver names none of them and instead grants the waiver to any party the insured has agreed in writing to waive. Both are valid; they trade specificity for convenience.

For a certificate holder, a blanket waiver is usually good news because it means the protection is already built in. But you still have to confirm two things: that the blanket endorsement is genuinely on the policy, and that your written contract actually triggers it. A blanket waiver with no underlying contract requiring it protects nobody.

What is the blanket waiver of subrogation form number?

There is no single form number, because the waiver is filed differently by coverage line. On commercial general liability, the standard ISO waiver is the CG 24 04, titled Waiver of Transfer of Rights of Recovery Against Others to Us; the scheduled version names the party, and blanket coverage is provided either by CG 24 04 completed with any person or organization the insured has agreed to waive, or by an insurer's own blanket endorsement. On workers compensation, the waiver is the WC 00 03 13, Waiver of Our Right to Recover From Others Endorsement, and many states file a blanket version, often shown as WC 00 03 13 A, that applies to all parties the insured is contractually obligated to waive.

What is a blanket waiver of subrogation on workers compensation?

A blanket waiver of subrogation on workers compensation waives the comp insurer's right to recover against any party the employer is contractually required to protect, using the WC 00 03 13 endorsement, or its blanket variant where a state files one. It matters because a workers compensation claim by an injured employee is the most common way a business gets pulled into a subrogation fight it thought a contract had settled. Note two things that trip teams up: workers comp waivers usually carry an added premium charge, and a handful of states restrict or prohibit them, so a vendor operating in one of those states may not be able to provide one at all.

What is the purpose of a waiver of subrogation?

The purpose of a waiver of subrogation is to prevent one party's insurer from suing the other party after paying a claim, so a business relationship is not undone by a recovery action between their insurers. Contracts require it to keep risk where the parties agreed to put it. A landlord requires a tenant's insurer to waive so a fire loss does not become a lawsuit against the landlord; a general contractor requires a subcontractor's insurer to waive so a jobsite injury does not circle back onto the general. It is a routine, reasonable request, which is exactly why it hides in boilerplate and gets missed.

How do you verify a blanket waiver of subrogation?

The certificate line is not proof. To verify a blanket waiver, request a copy of the actual endorsement and confirm the form number, that the blanket language covers parties required by written contract, and that the endorsement sits on the correct policy for the correct term. Then confirm your own contract contains the written requirement that triggers the blanket grant. If you are checking these at scale across a stack of policy documents, you can pull the endorsement forms and their key fields out of each document automatically instead of reading every page by hand. Storing the certificate is not the same as confirming the waiver behind it, and the gap between the two is where uncovered claims live.

Track the endorsement, not just the certificate word

Most COI programs collect the certificate and stop, which means they are trusting a typed line rather than the policy. Requiring a blanket waiver of subrogation in your contracts is step one; confirming the endorsement is actually attached, blanket rather than scheduled where you need it, and current on every renewal is the ongoing work. That verification is what COI verification software automates: it reads each ACORD 25, checks your required endorsements including waiver of subrogation, and flags a vendor whose waiver is missing before they start work. The same discipline applies to additional insured status, where the CG 20 10 vs CG 20 37 distinction decides whether you are covered during and after a project, and to the waiver of subrogation on a certificate of insurance more broadly. For contractors holding many subcontractors to these terms at once, COI tracking for general contractors checks every required endorsement automatically. And for the plain-English walk through the rest of the form, see how to read a certificate of insurance.