COISoftware collects a certificate of insurance from every line-clearance crew, substation contractor, locating service, vegetation-management firm and mutual-aid partner that works on your system, reads each ACORD 25 with AI, checks the coverage and limits against your contractor insurance requirements, and confirms your utility is named as additional insured with the right endorsements. Built for US electric, gas and water utilities, cooperatives and municipal utilities and the contractors who have to prove coverage before they reach the right of way. Upload a COI above to see it read in seconds.
Last updated June 2026
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Utility scopes carry very different risks, so most contracts require different coverage by contractor type. These are common starting points, not legal or insurance advice.
| Contractor type | Coverage commonly required | Why the utility requires it |
|---|---|---|
| Line construction and overhead/underground crews | General liability, high commercial auto, employers liability, high umbrella and excess, additional insured, waiver of subrogation | Energized line work is high-voltage and high-consequence, so utilities require heavy layered limits and additional insured protection |
| Line clearance and vegetation management | General liability, commercial auto, often pollution liability for herbicide, umbrella, additional insured | Tree work near energized lines carries contact, fire and chemical exposure that standard liability alone does not address |
| Substation and high-voltage electrical contractors | General liability, high umbrella and excess, employers liability, auto, additional insured, waiver of subrogation | A substation incident can cause a wide outage and major property loss, so contracts require the highest limits |
| Locating and damage-prevention services | General liability, professional liability, commercial auto, additional insured | A mislocate can cause a dig-in, gas release or outage, which creates professional as well as general liability |
| Engineering and design firms | Professional liability (errors and omissions) plus general liability | Design and engineering errors on lines, substations and pipelines create financial and design exposure standard liability does not cover |
| Mutual-aid and storm-restoration crews | General liability, high commercial auto, employers liability, umbrella, additional insured, waiver of subrogation | Surge crews work fast on your system during restoration, so current coverage and additional insured status must be confirmed quickly |
Set requirements to your own contracts, tariffs and state and federal rules, including any utility-specific regulatory requirements that apply. Professional and pollution coverages are distinct from general liability. Limits and coverages shown are common starting points, not legal or insurance advice.
A utility runs its system on outside contractors: line clearance and vegetation management, overhead and underground line construction, substation work, metering, locating, and mutual-aid crews during storms. Each contract sets specific insurance, the limits run high because the work is high-voltage and high-consequence, and the certificate has to be collected, read and verified against your specification before any crew touches an energized line. Doing that by hand across a large contractor base, and during a storm response when crews surge in fast, is where the exposure builds.
Line construction, substation and vegetation contracts commonly require umbrella or excess limits well into the millions, layered over general liability, auto and employers liability, because an electrical contact, fire or outage event is catastrophic. Confirming a contractor stacked the limits your specification requires, across primary and excess, is detailed work a spreadsheet of expiration dates does not do.
Utility work often requires contractors to carry coverage a basic certificate review never confirms: high commercial auto for line trucks and bucket trucks, professional liability for engineering firms, pollution liability for crews handling oil-filled equipment or spraying herbicide, and sometimes aircraft liability for helicopter line patrol. A process built for general liability alone never confirms they are there.
When a storm hits, contractor and mutual-aid crews arrive from out of state in days, sometimes hours. Verifying that every surge crew carries current coverage and names your utility as additional insured, while restoration is the priority, is exactly when manual COI checks fall apart and an uninsured crew slips onto the system.
Utility contracts require the utility to be named as additional insured on a primary and noncontributory basis, with a waiver of subrogation, so the contractor policy responds first and its insurer cannot come back against the utility. A certificate that names you only as certificate holder leaves a gap the contract assumed was closed.
A policy that was good when the contractor signed on can be cancelled or non-renewed in the middle of a multi-year line-clearance or construction program. Checking coverage once at onboarding misses a contractor whose policy lapsed while its crew is still on the right of way, which is exactly when a loss is most expensive.
A tab of contractors with manual dates breaks once you account for every crew across every district, circuit and capital program. Renewals slip, endorsements go unchecked, and proving you verified coverage before a crew energized a line means digging through email when a claim, a regulator or an audit lands.
The certificate a contractor hands over at onboarding is a snapshot from the day it was issued, not proof of coverage on the day an electrical contact, wildfire ignition or outage event happens. Confirming that every crew bought the limits its contract requires, carried the auto, professional and pollution coverage the scope demands, named your utility as additional insured with the right endorsements, and kept the policy current is repetitive, rules-based work across a large contractor base, which is exactly what software handles well. Certificate of insurance management software reads every certificate, checks it against your insurance specification, and flags anything short, expired or missing, so a risk or supply-chain analyst is not verifying PDFs by hand for every crew.
COISoftware reads every contractor certificate, checks it against your insurance specification, confirms the auto, professional and pollution coverage and the additional insured and waiver of subrogation endorsements your contracts rely on, and gives your risk and supply-chain teams one defensible view of who is actually covered across every district and program.
Upload a certificate from a line-clearance crew, line constructor, substation contractor, locator or engineering firm and the AI pulls the insurer, policy numbers, coverage types, limits, effective and expiration dates, and additional insured wording, even from scans and phone photos.
Enter the coverages, limits and endorsements your contractor insurance specification requires, and every certificate is checked against the right rule, so a contractor short on excess limits or missing a waiver of subrogation is flagged automatically before it mobilizes.
Utility contracts stack umbrella and excess over primary coverage, and COISoftware confirms the combined limit meets the contract, so a contractor carrying primary but missing the excess layer your high-voltage work requires does not slip through.
For scopes that require high commercial auto on line trucks, professional liability on engineering, or pollution liability on oil-filled equipment and herbicide spraying, COISoftware checks that the coverage and limits are present instead of assuming general liability covers them.
See whether your utility is named as additional insured, and whether primary and noncontributory and waiver of subrogation endorsements are present, so the contractual protection you bargained for is verified rather than guessed from a checked box.
When contractor and mutual-aid crews arrive during a storm response, COISoftware reads each certificate in seconds and flags any that are short, expired or missing your additional insured endorsement, so verification keeps pace with restoration instead of holding it up.
COISoftware reads the ACORD 25 and the broader certificate of liability insurance, then ties every contractor certificate into full certificate of insurance management software and ongoing vendor insurance compliance tracking. When a certificate looks off, the same checks behind certificate of insurance verification flag it for review. Line and construction crews are tracked the same way as subcontractor COI tracking for contractors, and utilities that also run generation plants and facilities manage on-site service contractors the same way as COI tracking for manufacturing. It is the insurance-verification layer that works alongside the contractor prequalification platforms many utilities already use, not a replacement for them.
Tracking insurance across every contractor and crew follows the same four steps as tracking a handful of vendors.
Enter the coverages, limits and endorsements your contractor insurance specification requires, and vary them by scope so a line-clearance crew, a substation contractor and an engineering firm each get the right rule. Include high commercial auto, umbrella and excess, professional and pollution liability, additional insured, primary and noncontributory and waiver of subrogation where the scope demands them.
Tip: Mirror the insurance exhibit in your contract and scale excess limits to the voltage and consequence of the work.
Request a COI from each contractor and crew before it reaches the right of way, or upload the certificates your supply-chain and field teams already receive. The AI reads every one automatically, so verifying coverage across hundreds of crews, including a storm surge, does not turn into hours of manual data entry.
Each certificate is checked against the requirement for that contractor scope. Short limits, missing auto, professional or pollution coverage, absent endorsements, expired policies and a missing additional insured are flagged before a crew ever touches an energized line.
Automated reminders chase any expiring certificate, and a cancelled or non-renewed policy is flagged mid-term, so coverage stays current for the life of every multi-year program across every contractor without an analyst tracking dates by hand.
Anyone responsible for proving that every contractor and crew on the system carries the coverage the contract requires.
A risk or supply-chain group at a utility is accountable for insurance on every contractor its operations and capital teams put to work. COISoftware turns each insurance-specification requirement into a live status, so an analyst sees a clear pass or flag instead of chasing certificates from every crew and reconciling them against each contract by hand.
An electric cooperative or municipal utility hires line, vegetation and substation contractors and still has to verify the required limits and endorsements on every one. The same dashboard tracks every contractor and scope, and line and construction crews are verified the same way as subcontractor COI tracking for contractors.
A utility that also runs generation plants and energy assets has to prove every on-site contractor carries current coverage, and that the utility is named as additional insured. To collect, verify and monitor every certificate in one place, pair this with vendor insurance compliance software, and if you are comparing platforms, our best COI tracking software roundup walks through the options honestly.
Utilities require contractors to carry general liability, commercial auto, workers compensation and employers liability, plus umbrella or excess limits that often run well into the millions because the work is high-voltage and high-consequence. Scopes with engineering risk add professional liability, and crews handling oil-filled equipment or herbicide add pollution liability. Almost every contract also requires the utility to be named as additional insured on a primary and noncontributory basis, with a waiver of subrogation, and the certificate has to show all of it.
Limits vary by utility and scope, but utility contracts commonly require general liability of $1 million or more per occurrence, commercial auto of $1 million or higher for line trucks, employers liability of $1 million, and umbrella or excess limits that frequently run from $5 million to $25 million or more on line construction and substation work. The exact figures are written into each insurance specification and the certificate has to meet them.
Utilities verify storm and mutual-aid crews by collecting a certificate from each incoming contractor, reading the coverages and limits, and confirming the utility is named as additional insured, all before the crew works on the system. The challenge is speed, because crews surge in fast during restoration. COI tracking software reads each certificate in seconds and flags any that are short, expired or missing the required endorsement, so verification keeps pace with restoration.
Utilities require additional insured status so they can be defended and covered under the contractor policy when a claim arises from the contractor work, and a waiver of subrogation so the contractor insurer cannot turn around and sue the utility to recover what it paid. Together they make the contractual risk allocation hold. A certificate that lists the utility only as certificate holder provides neither, which is why verifying the endorsements matters.
Line clearance and vegetation management contractors typically need general liability, commercial auto for chip trucks and bucket trucks, workers compensation and employers liability, and umbrella limits, because tree work near energized lines carries contact and fire risk. Many utilities also require pollution liability when the crew applies herbicide, and additional insured and waiver of subrogation endorsements. The required limits and coverages are set in the utility contract and the certificate has to meet them.
Utilities track certificates of insurance by recording each contract insurance requirement, collecting a COI from every contractor and crew, checking the coverages and limits against the specification, confirming additional insured status, and monitoring expiration for the term of the work. Doing this by hand across many districts and programs is slow and hard to audit, so most utilities move to COI tracking software that reads each certificate and flags any that are short or expired.
Pricing depends on how many contractors and crews you track and whether you want self-serve software or a managed service. COISoftware lists transparent monthly pricing and offers a free tier, so a municipal utility or a large investor-owned utility can start reading and verifying certificates without a sales call. You can test it on your own contractor certificates before paying anything.
Collect, verify and track every contractor and crew COI in one place.
Verify line and construction crews the same way you verify service companies.
Track energy contractors against MSA requirements the same way.
