Key takeaways
- A commercial general liability policy on its own usually will not answer for an aircraft loss, because most CGL wordings carry an aircraft exclusion. The policy you are looking for is aviation liability.
- Canada's minimum liability requirement for commercial RPAS work rose to $2M effective January 1, 2026. UAV Imaging carries $5M.
- Check the named insured against the company on your contract. A certificate in a pilot's personal name does not cover the corporation you hired.
- Additional insured status and a certificate holder line are not the same thing. Being the certificate holder only means you were sent a copy.
- Hull coverage protects the contractor's aircraft, not you. Ask about it anyway, because an uninsured airframe is a contractor with a reason to argue about who pays.
- WCB Alberta clearance is a separate letter, not a line on the certificate, and it is the document that keeps an unpaid premium from landing on your project.
- Ask for the certificate before the crew mobilizes, and ask for one dated inside the policy period rather than a copy from last year.
Every prequalification package asks for a certificate of insurance. Most buyers file it, tick the box and never look at it again. That is understandable, because the document is dense, it is written for brokers rather than for site managers, and on a drone job the coverage that matters is not the coverage most people are expecting to see.
This is what to look for on the certificate a drone contractor sends you, in the order it matters, and the one document that is not on the certificate at all.
Aviation liability, not just general liability
This is the single most common gap, and it is easy to miss because the certificate looks full.
A commercial general liability policy covers the ordinary business risks of a contractor on your site. What most CGL wordings also carry is an aircraft exclusion, which means that when the loss arises out of the operation of an aircraft, the policy steps back. A remotely piloted aircraft is an aircraft for this purpose. So a contractor can hold a perfectly valid $5M CGL policy and still have nothing that responds to a drone putting a dent in a transformer bank.
What you want to see is a line for aviation liability, or an RPAS or unmanned aircraft liability section, or a CGL policy with an endorsement that explicitly brings RPAS operations back into coverage. Any of those three can be correct. A bare CGL with no mention of aircraft or RPAS anywhere is the one to question.
If the certificate is ambiguous, the question to send back is short: does this policy respond to a third party loss caused by the operation of the remotely piloted aircraft, and can your broker confirm that in writing. A contractor who is actually insured for this answers in a day.
The limit, and the current Canadian minimum
Minimum liability insurance for commercial RPAS operations in Canada rose to $2M effective January 1, 2026. That is a floor, not a benchmark, and whether it is adequate depends entirely on what the aircraft is flying over. UAV Imaging carries $5M, which is the number most industrial and utility prequalification systems are now asking for.
Two things worth checking beyond the headline number:
- Per occurrence versus aggregate. An aggregate limit is the most the policy will pay across the whole policy year. If the contractor has already had a bad year, the aggregate may be partly consumed before they arrive at your site.
- Whether your own contract requires more. Many owner contracts and master service agreements specify a limit higher than the regulatory minimum. The certificate has to clear your contract, not just the regulation.
The named insured has to be the company you hired
Drone work has a lot of small operators, and a certificate in an individual pilot's name is common. If your contract, your purchase order and your invoice name a corporation, then a policy in a person's name is a mismatch, and the gap tends to surface at exactly the wrong moment.
Read the named insured line against the legal entity on your contract. If the contractor operates through a numbered company, the numbered company should be there. If they intend to subcontract any part of the flying, ask whether subcontractors are covered under this policy or carry their own, and get the second certificate if it is the latter.
Additional insured is not the same as certificate holder
This distinction costs people money, so it is worth being precise about.
The certificate holder is whoever the certificate was addressed to. It confers nothing. It means a copy was sent to you.
An additional insured is a party actually extended coverage under the contractor's policy for liability arising out of the contractor's work. If your contract requires you to be named as an additional insured, then your organization's name has to appear in that field, not just in the address block at the top.
Related and often required alongside it: a waiver of subrogation, which stops the contractor's insurer from turning around and pursuing you to recover what it paid, and a cross liability or severability of interests clause, which treats each insured as though it had its own policy. If your prequalification system asks for these, confirm they are actually on the certificate rather than assuming they came along with it.
Also check the cancellation notice period. Thirty days is typical. It is the difference between finding out a policy lapsed and finding out after the flight.
Hull and non-owned coverage
These two do not protect you directly, which is why buyers skip them. They are still worth a glance.
Hull coverage insures the aircraft itself. If a contractor loses an airframe and payload into a tailings pond with no hull coverage, that is their loss, not yours. But an operator staring at an uninsured write-off has a strong financial motive to find a theory under which the loss was caused by your site conditions, and that argument is unpleasant to have during an incident investigation.
Non-owned aircraft liability matters when the contractor flies an aircraft they do not own, which happens with rentals, demo units and loaners while an airframe is in for service. If that is part of how they operate, the coverage should follow.
Neither of these should decide your award. Both are reasonable questions to put on the prequalification form.
The document that is not on the certificate
In Alberta, workers' compensation coverage is not part of the certificate of insurance. It is a separate clearance letter from WCB Alberta, and you request it in its own right.
The reason it matters is specific: an unpaid WCB premium by a contractor working on your site can become your exposure. A clearance letter states that the contractor's account is in good standing as of its date, which is why the date on it matters as much as the letter itself. Collect it alongside the certificate, not instead of it.
The same date logic applies to the certificate. A certificate shows a policy period. If the policy expired in June and it is October, you are holding a historical document. Ask for a current one, issued by the broker, for the period that covers your flight date.
What sits beside the insurance
Insurance is one of several documents that together say whether a drone contractor can legitimately do your job. The others are the Transport Canada certification of the pilots who will actually be on your site, any operational authorization the flight requires, and whatever contractor management system your organization uses. UAV Imaging is registered with ISN, ComplyWorks and Avetta, which is where most Alberta industrial clients prefer to verify this material rather than by email.
Our article on how to vet a commercial drone contractor in Alberta walks through the certification and competence side, and what to put in a drone survey RFP covers where the insurance clause belongs in the scope so you are not negotiating it after award.
The short version
- Aviation or RPAS liability appears somewhere, not just CGL.
- The limit clears both the $2M Canadian minimum and whatever your own contract requires.
- The named insured matches the entity on your contract.
- You are an additional insured if your contract says so, with waiver of subrogation and cross liability if required.
- The policy period covers your flight date, and the certificate is a current issue.
- A WCB Alberta clearance letter is on file separately, and it is recent.
- Subcontracted flying, if any, is covered or separately certified.
Seven lines, one read-through, and it is the cheapest risk work on the whole job. If you want ours before you have even shortlisted, ask for it and we will send the certificate and the clearance letter together.