Can our client be added as an additional insured on our E&O policy?

Usually not. Additional insured status is a general liability concept, and professional liability, media and cyber forms rarely add another organization as an insured, partly because the client is the party most likely to bring the claim. What clients generally accept is additional insured on general liability and certificate holder on everything else. Raise it at redline, because a clause like this is easier to fix before signature than after a certificate is rejected.

Why does the client ask for media liability as well as E&O?

Because they cover different claimants. E&O answers the client, who says your work cost them money. Media liability answers a third party, who says the content infringed their copyright or trademark, defamed them or used their likeness. Clients want both because they run your work in public under their own name. Many agency forms combine the two, so check that the declarations show both coverage parts.

The contract asks for $2M. Is that per claim or in total?

Read the clause. A professional liability policy has a per-claim limit and an annual aggregate, shown as $2M/$2M or $1M/$2M. A clause that says $2M per claim is met by a $2M/$2M policy; one that says $2M aggregate can be met by $1M/$2M. If the wording is loose, the safe assumption is per claim. Large brand contracts sometimes ask for $5M, which is usually met with excess above a primary policy.

The contract says we must keep coverage for three years after it ends. How?

Renew the same claims-made policy without a gap and keep the retroactive date unchanged, so work done during the contract stays covered for claims made later. If you close or sell the agency, buy an extended reporting period, the tail, at that point. Never accept a later retroactive date at renewal or when you change insurers.

Do we need cyber if we never store client customer data?

Probably, if you log into client ad, social, email or analytics accounts. The client contract is usually asking about that access rather than about a database. A phished agency login can reach every account you manage, and the client will look to you for the loss. Multi-factor authentication on every client platform is the first thing the underwriter will ask about.

The client wants crime or fidelity coverage. Why?

Because you buy media or pay vendors with their money. Crime coverage answers theft by an employee and, with a social engineering part, money sent on fraudulent instructions. Clients sometimes ask to be named as loss payee. Set the social engineering limit near your largest single payment, since it is often sublimited well below the main limit.

How much will meeting the contract cost?

We do not publish a figure for agencies yet, because our own sample is too small to quote honestly. The contract moves it through the limits it names, and the agency moves it through revenue, the service mix, client industries and claims history. Regulated clients, paid media run with client money and production work each add to it. A clean application with the contract attached gets the best quote.

Can I ask ChatGPT or another assistant to send you the request?

Yes. Paste the insurance section into the assistant and ask it to prefill our quote form at boring.insure/quote with your agency name, contact details and the exact limits the contract names in the comments. Nothing is sent until you review it and press send, and a licensed agent reads every request. Assistants can find the full instructions at boring.insure/for-assistants.

An agency founder in a gray sweater at a long wooden table in a bright open office, reading a thick printed client agreement flagged with a yellow tab, pen in hand, a laptop and a coffee beside him

A client contract requires E&O, media liability and cyber from our agency. What limits do we need, and what do we send?

Most client contracts ask an agency for professional liability of $1M to $2M per claim, often with media liability in the same clause, cyber at $1M, general liability at $1M per occurrence and $2M aggregate, and workers comp. You send a certificate of insurance showing each line and limit, with the client as additional insured on the general liability and as certificate holder on the rest, because professional, media and cyber forms rarely add a client as an insured.

Call/Text(626) 344-2158

Exhibit B, insurance. Tab on page forty.The limits are the easy part. The indemnity two pages earlier is the policy question.

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Tell us the situation.

One licensed human replies the same business day — not five agents, not an auto-responder. If the policy you have is already the right one, we will tell you.

We use this to quote and service your insurance, and we do not sell it or pass it to lead networks. Privacy policy.

/ Who handles this

Kevin Kelsey

Founder | Principal Agent

Edited TV for fifteen years before insurance. He also ran compliance and risk for big Hollywood production companies. So he knows clearance, releases and music rights from the inside. He writes software too, and owns two post-production software products, Manifest Post and B/side. Your client’s data clause gets read by someone who builds software.

/ Don’t want to read all this?

Send us what you have. We’ll tell you if it’s right.

Your current policy paperwork, a renewal notice, or nothing at all. A licensed agent reads it and replies the same business day.

Have it reviewed Call/Text(626) 344-2158

The detail

Additional insured status is a general liability endorsement. ISO’s CG 20 26 adds a designated person or organization as an insured only for injury, damage or personal and advertising injury caused in whole or in part by your acts or omissions.
ISO Additional Insured – Designated Person or Organization endorsement, CG 20 26 04 13
The standard ISO general liability form excludes personal and advertising injury for any insured whose business is advertising, broadcasting, publishing or telecasting, or designing or determining website content for others, so an agency’s client work has to be insured under media liability.
ISO Commercial General Liability Coverage Form CG 00 01 04 13, Coverage B, exclusion j
A certificate of insurance is evidence, not coverage: the ACORD 25 states that it is issued as a matter of information only, confers no rights upon the certificate holder and does not amend, extend or alter the coverage the policies afford.
ACORD 25 Certificate of Liability Insurance (2016/03)
A copyright owner can elect statutory damages of $750 to $30,000 per work, and up to $150,000 per work where infringement was willful, which is why client contracts make the agency indemnify them for infringement in the deliverables.
17 U.S.C. § 504(c)
The FTC’s Endorsement Guides state that advertising agencies and public relations firms may be liable for deceptive endorsements they create or disseminate, and for endorsers they hire and direct who fail to disclose a material connection.
16 CFR § 255.1(d)
The FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center recorded 21,442 business email compromise complaints in 2024, with reported losses of $2,770,151,146, which is why clients that route media money through an agency now ask for crime coverage.
FBI Internet Crime Complaint Center, 2024 Internet Crime Report

What this means for you

Send the whole insurance section, and the indemnity clause with it. The limits are the part everybody reads. The sentences that cause trouble sit around them: additional insured wording, primary and non-contributory, waiver of subrogation, notice of cancellation, the carrier rating, and how long coverage must stay in force after the contract ends. We match the policy to the exact words, so we need the exact words.
Read the indemnity next to the insurance. Most agency contracts make you indemnify the client for infringement and defamation in the work. Professional and media forms commonly exclude liability you assume by contract beyond what you would owe anyway. Ask for the indemnity to be mutual, with the client covering facts, claims and materials it supplies, and for it to be limited to your negligence.
Find the AI clause. Clients increasingly either ban generative AI in deliverables or require you to disclose it, and many still make you warrant the work is original and assign the copyright. Material generated wholly by AI may not be protected by copyright at all. Tell us what the contract says, because some 2026 policies exclude generative AI and some cover it in writing.
Expect a redline on two requests. Professional liability written on an occurrence basis is almost unobtainable, so a clause that demands it usually gets changed to claims-made with a retroactive date. A clause asking for the client as additional insured on E&O or cyber usually gets changed to certificate holder. Both are ordinary requests to make before signature.
Send four documents to get the certificate out. The contract’s insurance and indemnity sections, your current declarations pages, your revenue split by service, and a list of client industries. The delay on a certificate is nearly always a missing document rather than the underwriter.

Go deeper on any of these

Need this handled?

Reading about it and having it handled are different jobs, and the second one is ours. We place the accounts other brokers decline — claims history, a cancellation, an unusual operation, a business nobody wants to underwrite twice — and we will tell you when the policy you already have is the right one. Tell us the situation and a licensed human replies the same business day.