Waiver of subrogation: the endorsement brokers and facilities ask you to add

What subrogation is, and what the waiver gives up

Subrogation is an insurer’s right, after it pays a claim, to go after the party that caused the loss and get its money back. A waiver takes that right away for one party: the broker, county, or facility named in your contract. It usually travels with additional insured status, and the certificate of insurance you send has a column for it beside each policy.

Workers’ compensation shows why buyers ask. The policy pays a hurt driver’s statutory benefits even when someone else caused the injury. When that someone is careless, the insurer can then sue them for what it paid.

Example: a driver slips on an unsalted ramp at a dialysis center while helping a rider inside. Your workers’ comp insurer pays the medical bills and lost wages. Without a waiver, it could sue the dialysis center for that money. With a waiver in the center’s favor, it cannot, and the cost stays with your insurer.

Which policies carry a waiver?

Workers’ comp, business auto, and general liability can all carry one, but they get there differently, and that decides whether you can sign the contract first and endorse later.

• Workers’ compensation. A standard workers’ comp policy does not include a waiver. SAIF, an Oregon workers’ comp insurer, adds one on request. A monopolistic state fund may refuse outright: North Dakota’s fund, the only workers’ comp seller in the state, never gives up its subrogation rights.
• Business auto. The standard ISO form transfers your recovery rights to the insurer and says you must do nothing “after ‘accident’ or ‘loss’” to impair them. A waiver you agreed to before the crash does not break that condition.
• General liability. The ISO coverage form works the same way: you must do nothing after loss to impair the insurer’s rights.

Insurers generally do not deny coverage when you waive recovery before a loss, but many policies exclude coverage when you waive it after one. The broker still wants proof, which is why contracts ask for an endorsement from the insurer rather than your word.

Blanket or scheduled, and what it costs

A scheduled waiver names one party, a blanket waiver reaches every party whose written contract requires one, and each insurer sets its own charge. The blanket form saves reissuing the endorsement for each new broker or facility. SAIF’s blanket form, for example, applies only to contracts that themselves require a waiver.

Four of SAIF’s six options, as a share of manual premium:

SAIF’s total waiver charge never exceeds 1 percent in a policy year. Policies written through Oregon’s Assigned Risk Plan can get only the partial waiver, at 5 percent of the related manual premium with a $250 minimum.

Blanket forms do not satisfy every buyer. Arizona’s Medicaid plan checklist for subcontractors states that blanket endorsements are not acceptable for the waiver. Texas lets a certificate mention a blanket waiver, but when that is the only waiver on the policy, the certificate cannot claim it runs in the holder’s favor.

What NEMT contracts require

Each NEMT contract names the policies that need the waiver and the parties it must favor, and no two read the same.

• MART, Massachusetts. The posted contract example (effective July 1, 2024) adds the waiver to workers’ compensation and employers’ liability, in favor of the human service transportation office and the broker.
• MTM, Pennsylvania. The provider agreement dated 01.01.2023 makes the waiver run in favor of “Medical Transportation Management, Inc. and all Affiliates.”
• WellTrans, Indiana. The October 16, 2025 revision of the agreement makes you waive any subrogation right your insurers may acquire against WellTrans, get any endorsement needed, and accept that the clause binds you even if no endorsement ever reaches WellTrans.
• Arizona Medicaid plans. Workers’ comp, auto, and general liability each need their own endorsement for the State of Arizona, with no blanket form.
• Hamilton County, Ohio. The December 2025 solicitation required each policy connected with the work to give up recovery against the county and Hamilton County Job and Family Services, and providers had to get similar waivers from their subcontractors in writing.

The WellTrans wording is the one to watch. If your policy lacks the endorsement, you have still made the promise, and any gap between the contract and the policy falls on your company. The broader contract terms around it are covered in NEMT liability, and the workers’ comp side in workers’ comp for NEMT.

Getting it on the policy

1. List every contract that requires a waiver and the policies each one names.
2. Ask your agent whether each policy can carry it, scheduled or blanket, and what it costs.
3. Have the endorsement issued before the first trip under the contract.
4. Check that the certificate marks the subrogation box only where an endorsement names that holder, which is the Texas regulator’s guidance for that box.
5. Repeat the request at every renewal, because a new policy needs new endorsements.

When you are shopping coverage, put the waiver on the list of endorsements you confirm before binding, as described in getting NEMT insurance.