What is a CG 24 04 endorsement?

The practical answer

CG 24 04 is the ISO form titled Waiver of Transfer of Rights of Recovery Against Others to Us. It is the general liability waiver of subrogation endorsement, and it stops the insurer from turning around after paying a claim and suing the party named in it.

Subrogation is the insurer stepping into its insured's shoes to recover from whoever caused the loss. A waiver gives that right up in advance, for a specific party, because a contract said so. It is the reason SUBR WVD exists as a column on the ACORD 25.

What the waiver actually prevents

A contractor's employee is injured on your site. Their carrier pays. Then the carrier files against you, arguing your negligence contributed to the injury, and you are defending a claim on a loss you thought you had contracted away. A waiver of subrogation removes that second action.

It protects you from the insurer, not from the insured. It does not stop the injured person suing you, and it does not give you coverage under the contractor's policy. Additional insured status is the thing that does that, and it is a different endorsement.

Blanket or scheduled

• A scheduled waiver names the person or organization in the endorsement's schedule. Verification is easy: your legal entity is either in it or it is not.
• A blanket waiver applies wherever the named insured agreed in a written contract, executed before the loss, to waive recovery. Nothing names you, so the evidence becomes the contract plus the endorsement wording plus the signature date.
• Editions differ on this point, so read the wording rather than assuming from the form number. Older editions in circulation are built around a schedule, and later revisions are written to pick up contractually required waivers.
• A blanket waiver with an unsigned contract behind it is worth nothing. If your program relies on blanket wording, the signed agreement is part of the compliance file, not an afterthought.

The workers compensation side

General liability and workers compensation waivers are separate endorsements on separate policies, and contracts routinely require both while vendors supply one.

On workers compensation the NCCI form is WC 00 03 13, Waiver of Our Right to Recover From Others. Several states run their own bureaus or their own rules, and a few restrict or price waivers differently, so a national vendor list will produce inconsistent answers state by state. Ask for the endorsement and read it rather than inferring from the certificate.

Verifying a waiver behind a certificate

• Start from the SUBR WVD column, but treat it as a pointer. It does not name a form, an edition or a party.
• Ask for the endorsement pages, on each line of coverage the contract names.
• Read whether the wording is blanket or scheduled, and if scheduled, whether your exact legal entity is in the schedule.
• Match the endorsement's policy number and effective dates to the certificate face.
• If blanket, confirm the contract requiring the waiver is signed and dated before the work started.
• Check the general liability and workers compensation policies separately. One waiver is not both.