What does primary and non-contributory mean (CG 20 01)?
It means your policy pays first and does not ask the other party’s insurer to share. "Primary" puts your policy at the front of the queue; "non-contributory" stops your insurer from demanding a contribution from theirs. It is a separate endorsement from additional insured status, and being an additional insured does not create it.
Tell us the situation.
A licensed human replies the same business day — not an auto-responder, and not five producers calling at once. We shop it across our carriers and tell you if the policy you already have is the right one.
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The detail
ISO form CG 20 01 is the endorsement commonly used to make general liability coverage primary and non-contributory with respect to other insurance available to an additional insured.
ISO CGL endorsement CG 20 01
Waiver of subrogation and primary and non-contributory status are distinct concepts addressed by different endorsements; one does not imply the other.
What this means for you
- Without it, your insurer can insist the general contractor’s own policy contributes — which is precisely the outcome the general contractor wrote the clause to prevent, and precisely the argument that delays a defence while two insurers negotiate.
- Contracts frequently bundle this into one sentence with additional insured and waiver of subrogation. That is one sentence and three separate endorsements.
- Check it is on the policy and not merely typed onto the certificate. This is one of the requirements most often asserted on paper and least often endorsed.
Related questions
- Am I automatically primary if I am the one who caused the loss?
- Not necessarily. How policies share a loss is governed by the "other insurance" clause in each of them, not by who was at fault. Two policies that both call themselves excess over the other produce exactly the stalemate this endorsement exists to prevent.
- Does the general contractor really need this?
- From their side it is entirely rational: they want their own loss history left alone by a claim your work caused. From your side the thing to understand is that it puts your limits at the front, which again is an argument for the limit being big enough.
Need this handled?
We do the filings, and we place the accounts other brokers decline — lapsed authority, claims history, new ventures. Tell us the situation and a licensed human replies the same business day.