Who asks a web development studio for what
| Who | What they usually want to see |
|---|---|
| Enterprise clients & vendor onboarding | General liability, professional or cyber liability, workers' compensation and often an umbrella |
| Landlords & commercial leases | General liability with the landlord as additional insured, property coverage on tenant improvements and workers' compensation |
| Banks, lenders & SBA loans | Property or auto physical damage with the lender as loss payee, and liability proof at closing and every renewal |
Each of them wants a certificate, and most want it again at every renewal. A live certificate link from the wallet shows today's coverage to every holder and tells them when it changes.
How to check what you already have
- Technology E&O declarations. The retroactive date, whether cyber coverages are included in the same form, contractual liability wording and the exclusions for guarantees of uptime.
- Cyber declarations. The headline limit matters less than the sublimits: social engineering, funds-transfer fraud, ransomware and business interruption, plus the regulatory coverage and the panel of breach vendors.
- General liability declarations page. Three liability numbers matter: each occurrence, general aggregate and the products–completed operations aggregate. Then the forms list: blanket additional insured, waiver of subrogation and primary and non-contributory wording satisfy every contract; scheduled forms satisfy one.
- Media liability form. Which perils are covered (copyright, trademark, defamation, privacy), whether prior content is covered from the retroactive date, and the exclusions for patent and contract disputes.
- Workers' compensation information page. Item 3.A must list every state you work in, item 4 must carry the right class codes, and the employers' liability limits should meet what contracts ask. Check that the estimated payroll is close to this year's.
- Professional liability declarations. Claims-made or occurrence, the retroactive date (it should not have moved), the limit per claim and aggregate, the deductible, and whether defence costs sit inside or outside the limit.
What usually goes wrong for web development studios
- Client sites hacked through a plugin the developer installed and never updated.
- Hosting and maintenance offered with no uptime terms and no tech E&O.
- Contracts that promise uptime or indemnity the policy excludes.
- Social engineering (wire fraud) sublimited to a small amount on a cyber policy with a large headline limit.
- Relying on the advertising-injury section of general liability for content work; it excludes most of it for media businesses.
- A retroactive date that moved when you switched carriers, cutting off earlier work.
What underwriters will ask a web development studio
- Sites built and hosted, platforms used, credentials and data held, and maintenance agreements
- Services, SLAs offered and the largest client contract
- Security controls and whether you hold client credentials or data
- Multi-factor authentication, backups and endpoint protection
- Records held, payment card handling and any client network access
- Kinds of content produced, whether you use licensed music, images and talent, and client contracts
Have the answers in the wallet before the renewal and the quote request fills itself in; CoverMatch sends one application to every eligible carrier and lines the quotes up against what you have.
Renewal timing
Claims-made policies make continuity the point: keep the retroactive date where it is, report circumstances as they arise, and never let a renewal lapse into a gap. Renewal autopilot starts the comparison sixty days out and shows the retroactive date on every quote.