To accommodate different learning styles, a step-by-step article with accompanying screenshots is provided directly below and a video tutorial is also available at the end of this document.

Introduction

Highwire's new and improved insurance view allows clients to define multiple insurance criteria for their contractors as well as give them a simple snapshot view of insurance certification status across their projects or portfolio. Clients can view, update, or create any number of insurance criteria by navigating to the Insurance tab on their left navigation bar. 

Setting Insurance Criteria

The main view of the Insurance tab is simple and straightforward. The top section of the page allows you to view any existing insurance criteria and/or to set any new, unique criteria for a subset of contractors. 

In the screenshot below, the example client has one saved criteria that sets baseline insurance requirements that all contractors must meet. In this example, this client named this specific criteria “Baseline Coverage” (you can choose your own naming convention to uniquely match your business standards). Since the client didn’t select a hierarchy for this criteria or choose a specific trade (more about that later), by default this criteria applies to all contractors that are connected to the client.

Insurance Types and Limits

Scrolling further down the page, the client can see and/or set the various insurance requirements associated with “Baseline Coverage”. For consistency and ease, the structure of the coverage section has been organized to present the insurance categories in the order they appear on a standard Certificate of Insurance (COI), including:

• General Liability Insurance
• Automobile Liability Insurance
• Umbrella Liability Insurance
• Workers Compensation and Employers’ Liability
• Specialty Lines of Coverage
• Description of Operations / Locations / Vehicles
• Certificate Holder Information

As shown in the screenshots below, the client can easily specify the coverage requirements and limits for each category by clicking the applicable boxes and completing the dollar amounts for coverage limits:

Description of Operations / Locations / Vehicles

Next, the client will see the Description of Operations / Locations / Vehicles section. 

This field in a standard COI can be used to detail specific information about the project or job that the COI was obtained for. It can include particular operations, locations, project numbers, or other client-specific identification. This section may also be used to list the details of additional insureds and subrogation waivers, if applicable. If a client requires specialty lines of insurance, those will be listed here as well.

The text that a client includes in this section must exactly match the text in the COI. Because there is always a chance of slight differences in text, in a later section, we will review how clients can accept text that meets the intent of their requirement, but isn’t a perfect text match to this field.

Certificate Holder Information

Many clients will require their contractors to list the client on the COI as a certificate holder. In those cases, the client's name and address will be listed in the next section as Certificate Holder.

Note that the certificate holder is simply the person who is receiving the COI from the insured to prove that the insured has proper coverage. A COI simply shows proof of coverage at that moment. The client, as a certificate holder, cannot change the contractor’s policy or make a claim on the policy.

The text that a client includes in this section must exactly match the text in the COI. As mentioned, in a later section of this article, we will review how clients can accept text that meets the intent of their requirement, but is a different text match to this field.

As noted, a certificate holder does not qualify for the benefit of the insurance coverage(s) unless they’re also named as an additional insured on the COI. 

Setting Insurance Criteria by Hierarchy

In addition to setting insurance criteria globally across your portfolio, Highwire’s Insurance tab also allows you to set unique insurance requirements for subsets of contractors. The first way to accomplish this is by using the “Select Hierarchy” functionality:

1. Click the blue “+Add” button and “New Criteria #2” will automatically be created (you can rename it after you define and save the criteria);
2. Then click the dropdown arrow under “Select Hierarchy” and choose your filter for this particular coverage. In this case, “Security” was chosen under the Division hierarchy:

Note that setting insurance criteria based on hierarchy is tightly tied to how a client uses Highwire’s powerful Projects tab. As part of the configuration process for Projects, Highwire will work with a client to develop a logical hierarchy that aligns with the client’s business organization. Hierarchy can be based on any parameter, such as department, division, or geography. Once a client creates a criteria based on their hierarchy, in this example the “Security” criteria, they simply need to ensure that any project that falls under “Security” is appropriately designed as such in order to be included in the filter. Here is a quick refresher on how to do that:

1. Go to your Projects tab and click on the applicable project;
2. On the Dashboard page (which is the default landing page), go to the appropriate hierarchy dropdown, in this case “Division”;
3. Click the dropdown arrow and choose your filter, in this case “Security”:

You’ve now successfully set unique insurance criteria that all contractors associated with this project will be compared against.

Setting Insurance Criteria by Specific Trade

The next filter isn’t project or hierarchy based, rather it allows a client to set unique insurance requirements for specific trade(s).

1. By checking “Yes” next to “Do you want to choose specific trades”, a “Select Trade Descriptions” dropdown box automatically appears;

2. Then click the dropdown arrow and select any trade(s) that you want to be included in this particular criteria. In the example below, contractors who enrolled as Division 10 or Division 26 will automatically be compared against the coverages set under this criteria. It’s that simple!

Viewing Your Contractors’ Insurance Status

There are several ways that clients can quickly gauge the insurance status of their contractors, either at a high-level glance or on a deeper detailed level.

Partners View | Insurance Flags

The quickest and simplest way to get a high-level view of contractors who don’t meet your set insurance criteria is on your Partners view, using the flags feature. You can easily filter your view to include only those contractors who triggered a flag for insurance:

1. Click on the dropdown arrow under “Flags”;

2. Choose insurance;

3. Click anywhere outside the box to set the filter;

4. Your list view will now be filtered to only include contractors who did not meet their required insurance criteria(s).

Contractors View | Insurance Details

If you want to see the details on exactly how a contractor didn’t meet your insurance criteria, you can simply click on that contractor to open their overview page. As you can see in the screenshot below, the contractor’s insurance view will give you a line-by-line report with a simple yes/no status for each category of coverage:

In the above example, District Builders did not meet the client’s set criteria for Umbrella and Excess Liability coverage. You can see that they met the criteria for policy limits, but their “Umbrella Liability” checkbox was not checked. While the client will get specific notification from the Highwire system about what they are missing, the client can also use this information to reach out to the contractor for resolution.

How to Set Manual Acceptance of an Insurance Requirement

In addition, the client can also override any insurance criteria if the contractor’s coverage is deemed adequate on further individual review by the client. Here’s how a client can change a contractor’s status from “No” to “Yes” on a case-by-case basis:

1. Click on the dropdown box next to “No” and choose “Yes” instead.

It’s that simple. And for record-keeping purposes, the change is logged permanently. You can always see who made the change and when it occurred by clicking on the information icon next to the changed field:

Note that your contractor will also see that same information icon in their view so they can clearly identify any action(s) where a client overrode an insurance requirement and made a change from “No” to “Yes”.

Notifications

One final way to get an automated daily summary of contractor insurance status is to use Highwire’s powerful Notification functionality to include insurance changes in your daily digest or in-application notification center:

1. Click on your user icon in the top right corner;

2. Choose “My Profile”;

3. Navigate to the Notifications tab on your left-nav bar;

4. Click on the Insurance section and turn your notifications and Daily Digest selections on.

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Video Tutorial