Getting a cleaner into a co-op or condo that wants a COI

Why this stops so many bookings

You book a cleaner, they arrive, and the doorman turns them away. This happens constantly in New York and almost always for the same reason: the building requires a certificate of insurance and the company either does not carry the right coverage or will not do the paperwork.

It is the most common reason a cleaning booking fails in a managed building, and it is entirely avoidable if you ask two questions before you hire.

What the building is actually asking for

A certificate of insurance is a standardized one-page form, usually an ACORD 25, issued by the vendor's insurance broker. It confirms what coverage exists, the limits, the policy dates, and critically, that your building is named as an additional insured party.

That last part is the whole point. A company can be fully insured and still fail your building's requirement, because a policy that does not name the building does not protect the building.

Buildings typically want to see:

• General liability, commonly $1,000,000 per occurrence and $2,000,000 aggregate
• Workers' compensation, which is mandatory in New York for anyone with employees
• Disability benefits coverage, a New York State requirement
• The building, the managing agent, and sometimes the owner named as additional insured
• Correct legal names and the exact address, matching the managing agent's sheet

Requirements vary. Some Manhattan co-ops ask for higher limits or umbrella coverage. Get the actual sheet rather than guessing.

Do this in the right order

The sequence matters, because doing it backwards is what produces the two-week delay.

First, ask your managing agent for their vendor insurance requirements. Ask in writing and ask for the sheet, not a verbal summary. You need the exact legal names, the address as they want it written, and the limits. Getting a name wrong means the certificate comes back and gets reissued, which is another two days.

Then hire a company that files COIs as a matter of routine. This is the question to ask on the first call: "My building requires a certificate of insurance naming the building as additional insured. Do you provide those?" A company that does this regularly answers immediately, because they do it every week for managing agents. Hesitation, or an offer to "look into it," means you should expect friction.

Then allow three business days between requesting the certificate and the first visit. The company requests it from their broker, the broker issues it, and the managing agent has to approve it before staff will admit anyone.

Why so few companies do it

Filing COIs means carrying real coverage, paying for it, and doing administrative work per client for no extra revenue. Independent cleaners and contractor-based services generally cannot, because the coverage sits with each individual worker rather than with a company.

Of the 17 companies in this directory, three confirm on their own websites that they file certificates of insurance with buildings. That is not because the other fourteen refuse. Most simply do not say, and the honest reading of a missing answer is that you have to ask.

See cleaners who file COIs with buildings

If your building is strict and your favorite cleaner cannot comply

You have three real options and one bad one.

Hire a company that can, and keep the independent cleaner for a different apartment. Ask the managing agent whether they will accept a certificate without the additional-insured endorsement, which some smaller buildings will. Or ask whether the building maintains an approved-vendor list, since being on it usually skips the per-visit paperwork entirely.

The bad option is to have the cleaner come as your "guest." Building staff recognize the pattern, it puts the cleaner in a position where an injury has no coverage, and it puts you in the position of having arranged that.