The Subcontractor Compliance Checklist for General Contractors

Before a subcontractor sets foot on your job, you should have seven things on file and verified: a signed subcontract, a current W-9, a certificate of insurance (ACORD 25) with the right coverages and limits, Additional Insured and Waiver of Subrogation endorsements, proof of workers' compensation (or a valid exemption), a current contractor license confirmed against DBPR, and a lien-waiver process as you pay. This checklist walks through each item, how to set your requirements, and how to keep it from slipping once the work starts.

Compliance is not paperwork for its own sake — it's how a general contractor transfers risk it cannot afford to keep. The certificate is the receipt; the verification is the protection.

Why does subcontractor compliance matter?

When you hire a sub, you are betting that if something goes wrong — an injury, property damage, defective work, a tax dispute — the cost lands on the party that caused it, not on you. That bet only pays off if the paperwork is in order before the work begins. The right documents push liability down to the subcontractor and their insurer, keep your own loss history clean, and let you survive an audit without scrambling.

Three pressures make this concrete. First, risk transfer: a properly endorsed sub policy means a claim arising from their work is defended and paid by their carrier, with you named as an Additional Insured. Second, your own insurance audit: general liability and workers' comp auditors routinely reclassify uninsured subs as your employees and charge you premium on their payroll — sometimes a large surprise at year-end. Third, licensing exposure: putting an unlicensed or improperly licensed sub on a job can jeopardize permits, payment, and your own standing.

The complete subcontractor compliance checklist

Collect and verify these items, in roughly this order, before issuing a notice to proceed. Each one answers a specific risk — don't treat them as interchangeable.

1. Signed subcontract. The master document that defines scope, price, schedule, and — critically — the insurance and indemnification requirements every other item must satisfy. If your contract doesn't spell out coverages, limits, and endorsements, the certificate has no standard to be measured against.
2. Current W-9. Captures the sub's legal name, entity type, and taxpayer identification number so you can issue a 1099 and prove the relationship was a contractor, not an employee. Match the name here to the name on the insurance certificate and the license.
3. Certificate of insurance (ACORD 25). The one-page summary of the sub's coverages, limits, policy numbers, and effective and expiration dates, listing your company as the Certificate Holder. Confirm the coverages and limits meet your contract. Here's how to read an ACORD 25 line by line.
4. Additional Insured and Waiver of Subrogation endorsements. The certificate's checkboxes are a claim, not proof. Request the actual endorsement forms (e.g., CG 20 10 / CG 20 37) so the sub's liability policy genuinely covers you, and so their insurer can't turn around and sue you to recover a paid claim.
5. Workers' compensation (or a valid exemption). Construction employers in Florida generally must carry it. If a sub claims an exemption for an officer or LLC member, collect the state-filed exemption documentation — and confirm everyone who will actually be on site is covered.
6. Valid, current contractor license verified against DBPR. Don't just take the number on the letterhead. Look it up at the state portal, confirm the status is Current/Active (not Null, Void, Delinquent, or Expired), check the expiration date and the qualifying agent, and confirm a Registered license is valid in your jurisdiction. See the step-by-step license-verification guide.
7. Lien waivers. Collected as you pay — typically a conditional waiver with each progress payment and an unconditional waiver once that payment clears — to protect against liens from the sub or their suppliers and lower-tier subs.
8. Safety / OSHA documentation, where relevant. On projects that warrant it, collect the sub's written safety program, training or competent-person records, and any site-specific safety acknowledgments your job requires.

How do I set the right coverage limits?

Your subcontract should state exact minimum limits so the certificate has a clear bar to clear. The figures below are a common starting point for many commercial GCs — adjust them to your project size, your own policy requirements, and any owner or lender mandates flowing down to you.

Also require that coverage be primary and non-contributory, that you receive notice of cancellation, and that the products–completed-operations coverage be maintained for an agreed period after completion — defect claims rarely arrive on the day you close out the job.

How do I track expirations and renewals?

Every document on this list has a clock. Insurance policies lapse, certificates expire, and Florida contractor licenses run on a roughly two-year (biennial) renewal cycle. A sub who was fully compliant in January can be out of coverage in July without telling you. Build tracking around the dates that matter:

• Record the expiration date of each insurance policy and the contractor license, not just whether a document exists.
• Set reminders 30, 15, and 7 days before any expiration so you can request renewals before there's a gap.
• Re-pull the DBPR license status on renewal and before issuing a new work order — status can change to Delinquent or Null between renewals.
• Flag any sub whose coverage will expire mid-project and chase the updated certificate early.

Common mistakes GCs make

Filing it and forgetting it

The most expensive habit is collecting a certificate at onboarding and never looking again. Compliance is a state, not an event. If you aren't re-verifying at expiration and before new work orders, you are relying on documents that may no longer be true.

Trusting the certificate checkbox

An ACORD 25 is informational — it does not amend the policy. A checked "Additional Insured" or "Waiver of Subrogation" box is a representation, not coverage. The protection lives in the endorsement, so request the endorsement form, not just the certificate. A quick certificate-and-license check catches mismatches the eye glides past.

No re-verification of the license

A license number that was valid last year tells you nothing today. Confirm the current status against DBPR, that a Registered license is valid in your jurisdiction, and that the qualifying agent still stands behind the business.

Vague contract requirements

If the subcontract doesn't name specific limits and endorsements, you can't enforce them. The certificate review is only as strong as the requirements you wrote down.

Turning the checklist into a repeatable process

A checklist you run differently for every sub isn't a process — it's a memory test you'll eventually fail. Standardize it:

1. Define the requirements once in a standard subcontract with fixed limits and required endorsements.
2. Use one intake checklist for every sub so nothing is collected for one and skipped for another.
3. Verify, don't just file — check the license against DBPR and the certificate against your requirements before approving.
4. Centralize the records with their expiration dates so any project manager can see a sub's status at a glance.
5. Automate the reminders so renewals are requested before lapses, not after.

How SubShield operationalizes the checklist

SubShield was built to make this checklist run itself. You upload the documents a sub sends and the AI reads the ACORD 25 — pulling coverage types, limits, policy numbers, and effective and expiration dates — then checks the contractor license against DBPR to confirm the status, expiration, and qualifying agent. It tracks W-9s, watches every expiration date, and sends alerts before a policy or license lapses, so a sub can't quietly fall out of compliance mid-project.

Instead of a folder of PDFs you hope are current, you get a live status for each subcontractor and a warning before anything expires. You can run a verification to see how it reads a certificate and license, review the pricing for your volume of subs, or create an account to put this whole checklist on autopilot.