Certificates of insurance for your building

What a COI is

A certificate of insurance is a document issued by the mover's insurance agency confirming that coverage is in force, what kinds of coverage they are, and which parties the building asked to have listed on it. Buildings use it as evidence before they hand over an elevator or a loading door.

It is a snapshot of coverage, not a contract between you and the building, and it does not change any of the building's other rules. Move-in hours, elevator reservations, deposits and protection requirements are separate, and they are worth asking your building about in the same conversation.

What the building will ask for

Buildings want exact names, and exact is the operative word. The legal entity that owns the building, the management company, sometimes a board or an association, occasionally all of them, each spelled the way they appear on their own paperwork, with the full address including the unit or suite. Most also specify who must be listed as certificate holder and who must be named as additional insured, which are not the same thing.

They will also list the coverage types they require, the limits they require, and the date of the move. The fastest path is to send us the building's requirements sheet or their sample certificate rather than retyping it. If anything they ask for is outside what the policy carries, you will hear that while there is still time to talk to the building, not the day before the truck arrives.

Lead time, and what holds a certificate up

Request the COI as soon as your move date is set. Not the week of, and not once the building reminds you. The document itself is routine. What is not routine is everything around it.

The usual delays: a management company name that changed since the last time anyone updated the handbook, a missing unit or suite number, a certificate holder listed as the building when the building wants the ownership LLC, a move date that moved, a requirement for specific endorsement wording that has to be added, and buildings that only accept certificates uploaded to their own portal or sent directly by the agency. Weekends and holidays also matter, because insurance agencies keep business hours even when movers work seven days a week.

Two addresses usually means two certificates

If you are leaving one managed building for another, each one needs its own certificate naming its own parties. The same is true for an office move between two buildings, and for a storage or event address in the middle. Ask each building for their requirements separately rather than assuming they match, because they rarely do.

Then close the loop. Get written confirmation from the building or the management office that the certificate has been received and accepted, and confirm the elevator reservation at the same time. A certificate sitting in somebody's inbox is not the same as one on file, and on move morning only the second one counts.