A guard removes a trespasser from the pool deck at eleven at night. There is a scuffle. The man goes to the hospital and later sues the security company and the association.
The board pulls the certificate of insurance it collected at signing. General liability, one million per occurrence, association listed as additional insured. Everything looks right.
The security company’s policy excludes assault and battery. The claim arising from a guard putting hands on someone is the one claim the policy was written not to cover, and the certificate never said so.
Certificates report limits. They do not report exclusions, and in security work the exclusions are where the exposure lives.
Decide What the Operation Actually Is First
Insurance requirements should follow the services being purchased rather than a generic vendor template.
A gated community using one unarmed officer to verify visitors is a different exposure from a large community running mobile patrol, armed officers, and overnight coverage. The post orders matter more than the job title — the written instructions guards actually work from, covering visitor verification, patrol frequency, and when to call police.
Ambiguity between what the board believed it was buying and what the company believed it was providing is exactly what surfaces after a serious incident, when nobody can fix it.
The State Licensing Minimum Is a Floor
Florida regulates private security agencies under Chapter 493. A Class B security agency must maintain a minimum $300,000 combined single limit general liability policy covering death, bodily injury, property damage, and personal injury for licensed employees acting in the course of employment, under Fla. Stat. §493.6110.
That is a real and enforced requirement. It is also far below what an association should require contractually. Licensing establishes that a company may operate. It says nothing about whether its coverage fits the work your community is hiring it to do.
Armed officers add a layer. Florida requires the appropriate Class G firearm license, and the company’s insurance should be written for an armed operation rather than a generic unarmed program.
Four Things a Certificate Will Not Tell You
The first and most important is assault and battery. Physical confrontation can be inherent to the job, and many general liability policies written for security companies exclude assault and battery outright or sublimit it well below the policy limit. Because the underlying event in most negligent security lawsuits is an intentional act, that exclusion sits directly in the path of the claims most likely to happen.
The details matter as much as whether the coverage exists. A policy showing a million-dollar limit with assault and battery capped at $100,000 is a very different policy. Some forms pay to defend an assault and battery claim but exclude the judgment, so the carrier funds the lawyers and the company funds the verdict. Some exclude claims involving firearms entirely, which is decisive if any post is armed, and whether the assault and battery limit stands alone or erodes the general aggregate changes what is left after one serious claim.
Professional liability answers a different allegation: not what a guard did, but what the company failed to do. A skipped patrol, access procedures that were not followed or a reported condition nobody addressed is a professional services failure, and general liability does not automatically reach it.
Abuse and molestation deserves separate attention because guards interact with residents, visitors, children and elderly residents, often overnight with few others around. It is frequently excluded from standard general liability unless specifically purchased, the exclusion can extend to negligent hiring and supervision allegations, and a policy can cover assault and battery while excluding abuse and molestation.
Finally, mobile patrol brings in auto and workers’ compensation. Cars and golf carts moving through the community create auto exposure even if they never leave association property, and given how physical the work can be, the vendor’s workers’ compensation is worth verifying directly.
Three Questions Behind the Limit Itself
Even where the coverage exists, the limit may not be what it appears to be.
Start with the aggregate. A security company’s general aggregate applies across its entire book of business, not to each client, so a company serving forty communities carries one aggregate and a bad year elsewhere can erode what remains for your association. On a significant contract it is fair to ask whether a per-location aggregate endorsement is in place.
Then ask whether the coverage is written on an occurrence or claims-made basis. Abuse and molestation and professional liability are often claims made, which means the policy that responds is the one in force when the claim is reported, not when the incident happened. If the company changes carriers and the new policy has a recent retroactive date, years of prior work lose coverage without anything on the certificate changing.
Last, check whether the umbrella follows form. Associations often require an umbrella above the general liability, but umbrellas written over security operations commonly exclude assault and battery even when the underlying policy covers it. An umbrella that drops out on the exposure you were most worried about adds a number to the certificate and nothing else.
Additional Insured Status Requires the Endorsement
Associations routinely require additional insured status, primary and noncontributory wording, and a waiver of subrogation. Those are three separate requirements and none of them is created by a certificate listing the association’s name in a box.
The policy and its endorsements determine whether the protection exists. Ask for copies of the endorsements themselves, and have the association’s own insurance professional read them rather than treating the certificate as the answer.
The Contract Has to Carry Its Share
Insurance requirements only work when the contract behind them does.
A hold harmless and indemnification provision is what actually shifts liability from the association to the security company. The insurance is what makes that promise collectible. A contract with strong indemnity language and a vendor whose policy limits contractual liability coverage produces an obligation the company cannot fund.
A Very New Agency Probably Does Not Have Assault and Battery Coverage
This is worth knowing before a board reads a single certificate.
Carriers are reluctant to write assault and battery coverage for a security agency with no operating history. Most want to see at least a year in business and would prefer two. An agency formed six months ago is very unlikely to have the coverage, not because it declined to buy it, but because the market would not sell it.
That does not make a new agency a bad company. Plenty of capable operators start out, and the work they can properly take in year one tends to be unarmed observe-and-report posts, smaller private clients, and subcontracting under an established agency that carries its own coverage.
It does mean a board evaluating a young company should ask how long it has been in business and then ask for the assault and battery endorsement specifically. If the answer is that the coverage is not in place, the association is choosing to accept the exposure rather than transfer it, and that should be a decision the board makes knowingly rather than one it discovers later.
Subcontracting Can Undo Everything Above
Boards should confirm whether the contract permits subcontracting, because a certificate from the company that won the bid says nothing about the company whose officers are actually in the community.
This connects directly to the point above. Subcontracting under an established agency is one of the main ways newer companies get work, which means the sub standing at your gate may be precisely the operator without assault and battery coverage, working under a prime contractor’s paper. If subcontracting is permitted, the association should require the same verification for any subcontractor that it required of the prime.
Access to Keys, Cash, or Property
Where guards hold keys, access codes, or move through unoccupied clubhouses and offices, crime or fidelity coverage on the security company’s side becomes relevant.
Theft by an employee of a vendor is handled differently from theft by the association’s own staff, and it is worth knowing which policy would respond before something goes missing.
Recheck at Every Renewal
A renewal certificate can show identical limits over a policy that has materially changed.
A security company that switches carriers can lose assault and battery or abuse and molestation coverage it carried the previous year, and the visible limits will look the same. If a coverage mattered enough to require at signing, it is worth confirming that the requirement is still satisfied each year rather than filing the new certificate and assuming continuity.
Where a certificate raises questions, verifying directly with the issuing agent or carrier is reasonable on a contract of this significance.
Insurance Does Not Replace Vendor Selection
Coverage is the financial backstop. It is not a substitute for hiring a professionally run company.
Hiring standards, training, supervision, and how the company handles complaints about its own officers all matter independently of anything on a certificate. Incident reports and patrol logs, increasingly electronic or GPS verified, become valuable evidence later by establishing what was observed and acted on.
Camera footage needs a retention process. Most systems overwrite automatically within days or weeks, and the footage of the incident everyone wants to see is routinely gone before anyone thinks to preserve it. Deciding in advance who flags and saves footage after an incident is a five-minute policy decision that protects the association repeatedly.
The Association’s Own Exposure Does Not Transfer
Hiring a security company does not move every related exposure off the association.
Lighting, gates, locks, fencing, and general maintenance remain the association’s responsibility regardless of who patrols. A serious incident can generate allegations against the association directly, often turning on what the board knew about prior incidents and what it did in response. Documented complaints about lighting or a broken gate, unaddressed, become the center of that kind of case.
The association’s own general liability and D&O remain necessary. The vendor’s insurance is a layer alongside them, not a replacement.
What Boards Should Verify Before Signing
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Does the security company’s general liability cover assault and battery, and at the full limit or a sublimit?
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Does the assault and battery coverage include indemnity, or only defense?
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Are firearms claims excluded, and does that matter for the posts being contracted?
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Does the assault and battery limit stand alone, or erode the general liability aggregate?
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How long has the company been in business, given that newer agencies often cannot obtain assault and battery coverage at all?
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Is abuse and molestation coverage in place, and is it separate from assault and battery?
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Is there professional liability for failures to perform contracted services?
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Is the general aggregate shared across all the company’s clients, or endorsed per location?
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Are the abuse or professional coverages claims made, and what is the retroactive date?
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If an umbrella is required, does it follow form over assault and battery?
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Have you seen the actual additional insured, primary and noncontributory, and waiver of subrogation endorsements, not just the certificate?
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Does the contract include indemnification, and does the policy support contractual liability?
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Does the contract permit subcontracting, and if so, has the subcontractor’s coverage been verified to the same standard?
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Do guards hold keys or access codes, and is crime or fidelity coverage in place?
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Are officers armed, and is the company licensed and insured for an armed operation?
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Is commercial auto in place if patrol vehicles are used on property?
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Is workers’ compensation verified?
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Who is responsible for preserving camera footage after an incident?
General information only, not legal advice. Florida’s private security licensing requirements under Chapter 493 are subject to change; confirm current requirements with the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services and review contract terms with the association’s counsel. Policy forms, exclusions, sublimits, endorsements, and aggregate structures vary by carrier and by policy. Refer to the actual policies and endorsements rather than to a certificate of insurance, which confers no coverage.
Talk to Prestige Insurance Group
Prestige Insurance Group works with Florida homeowners associations and condominium associations, and with security agencies themselves, which means we read these certificates from both sides.
If your board is evaluating a security contract, the fastest useful step is to stop reading the certificate and ask for the assault and battery and abuse and molestation endorsements. Whether those come back quickly, slowly, or not at all tells you a great deal before anyone reviews a word of them.
Call the office nearest you. Se habla español.
Orlando: 407-993-2331
Miami: 305-969-8776
Stuart: 772-247-3788
Prestige Insurance Group, License L057894
