Vendor contracts and insurance

Scope, deposits, cancellation, substitution, COIs, additional insured. Use the contract outline and understand what a certificate of insurance actually proves.

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Vendor contracts and insurance.

Scope, deposits, cancellation, substitution, COIs, additional insured.

Use the contract outline and understand what a certificate of insurance actually proves.

What a vendor contract must say.

A contract is a shared memory.

The ones that cause trouble are not the long ones; they are the short ones that leave out the thing that went wrong.

Certificates of insurance.

A COI is a one-page summary issued by the vendor's broker.

Check five things: the named insured matches the company you contracted; the policy dates cover your event date; the limit meets the venue's minimum (commonly 2 dollars million commercial general liability, sometimes 5 dollars million for performers with rigging or fire); the venue and, where required, the client and you are listed as additional insured; and the certificate was issued recently, not pulled from a folder.

Your own insurance.

A planner should carry commercial general liability and, ideally, professional liability (errors and omissions).

Clients and venues increasingly ask for the planner's COI too.

The ownership disclosure.

If you own or have an interest in a vendor you recommend, put it in the proposal and the contract in plain words.

This site does the same: listings owned by the founder carry a visible disclosure and no ranking preference, and an alternative is always shown.

Worked example.

The Harbour Gala vendor file: 14 contracts, 14 COIs naming the hotel as additional insured, two riders (mentalist, magicians), one substitution clause exercised (a magician with the flu was replaced from the same agency with the committee's written approval two days out).

Everything sat in one folder the hotel's event manager could see.

That is the lesson. The worksheet and the quiz are just below this video.

What you will be able to do

• Review a vendor contract with the outline
• Collect and check COIs
• Handle substitutions and cancellations

What a vendor contract must say

A contract is a shared memory. The ones that cause trouble are not the long ones; they are the short ones that leave out the thing that went wrong. Every vendor agreement needs these ten elements. Use the rider template and the vendor contract outline in the tools library, and remember none of this is legal advice.

1. Parties and the event: legal names, the date, the venue, the client.
2. Scope: exactly what is delivered: hours, set lengths, quantities, deliverables (for a photographer: hours on site, number of edited images, delivery date, usage rights).
3. Price and what it excludes: HST shown, travel, parking, overtime rate, meals.
4. Deposit and payment schedule: with dates and methods.
5. Cancellation: what each side pays if either cancels, on a schedule (more than 90 days, 30–90, under 30).
6. Postponement: whether the deposit moves to a new date and for how long.
7. Substitution: what happens if the performer is ill; whether a comparable replacement is supplied and whether the client may refuse it.
8. Force majeure: defined narrowly; what happens to deposits.
9. Insurance and compliance: the vendor carries liability insurance, supplies a COI, and holds any required certification (Smart Serve, rigging, pyrotechnics).
10. Liability and indemnity: each side responsible for its own negligence; a cap on the vendor’s liability at the contract value is common and reasonable.

Certificates of insurance

A COI is a one-page summary issued by the vendor’s broker. Check five things: the named insured matches the company you contracted; the policy dates cover your event date; the limit meets the venue’s minimum (commonly $2 million commercial general liability, sometimes $5 million for performers with rigging or fire); the venue and, where required, the client and you are listed as additional insured; and the certificate was issued recently, not pulled from a folder. Venues will refuse load-in without it, so collect COIs with contracts, not the week before.

Your own insurance

A planner should carry commercial general liability and, ideally, professional liability (errors and omissions). Clients and venues increasingly ask for the planner’s COI too. For one-off events in unlicensed venues, event liability insurance with host liquor coverage, typically $150–$400 for a day, protects the host; make it a line on every budget.

The ownership disclosure

If you own or have an interest in a vendor you recommend, put it in the proposal and the contract in plain words. This site does the same: listings owned by the founder carry a visible disclosure and no ranking preference, and an alternative is always shown. Clients forgive a declared interest; they do not forgive a discovered one.

Worked example

The Harbour Gala vendor file: 14 contracts, 14 COIs naming the hotel as additional insured, two riders (mentalist, magicians), one substitution clause exercised (a magician with the flu was replaced from the same agency with the committee’s written approval two days out). Everything sat in one folder the hotel’s event manager could see.

Common mistakes

• A performer “contract” that is an email saying “see you then”.
• Deposits paid before the cancellation terms are read.
• COIs collected the week of the event and found to be expired.
• No substitution clause, and a sick headliner with no replacement.
• A price that silently excludes HST, travel and overtime.

Ontario rules that apply

Most vendor agreements are ordinary commercial contracts, and Ontario law treats them as such. A few provincial and federal points are worth knowing because they shape what goes in the document. As with everything in this lesson, this is orientation, not legal advice; have a lawyer review your standard template once and reuse it.

Who the client is. When your client is an individual planning a wedding or a birthday rather than a business, Ontario’s Consumer Protection Act, 2002 may add requirements to the agreement and give the consumer rights that a business client would not have. If you or your vendors contract directly with couples and families, have a lawyer confirm that your template meets those rules.

Signatures. Ontario law generally recognizes electronic signatures for commercial agreements, so a signed PDF or an e-signature platform is fine for most vendor contracts. What matters is that both sides can show they agreed to the same version. Save the signed copy, not just the email thread.

Tax. A vendor registered for HST should show their HST registration number on the contract or invoice. Your client, if registered, needs it to claim input tax credits, and its absence is a reason to ask whether the 13 percent on the quote is being collected properly. A small performer under the CRA’s $30,000 small supplier threshold may legitimately not charge HST at all; that should be stated, not assumed.

Workplace coverage. Some venues and corporate clients ask vendors with crew on site, such as staging, rigging or rentals, for a WSIB clearance certificate as well as a COI. It shows that the vendor’s workplace insurance account with the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board is in good standing. If a venue asks, pass the request on when you send the contract, not the week of load-in.

Numbers to know

There are no fixed rates for deposits and cancellations, but there are common patterns in the GTA, and knowing them helps you spot a contract that is out of line.

• Deposits of 25 to 50 percent at signing are common for performers, photographers and AV; venues and caterers often take a deposit and then further payments on a schedule.
• Cancellation charges usually rise as the date approaches, often reaching the full fee inside 30 days, because the vendor can no longer rebook the date.
• Commercial general liability of $2 million is a common venue minimum, with higher limits asked of riggers, aerialists and fire performers.
• Final balances are often due on or just before the event day. Agree in advance who carries the cheque or sends the transfer, so nobody is chasing payment at load-in.

GTA practice notes

Large GTA venues, particularly hotels and convention centres, will not let a vendor load in without a current COI on file that names the venue as additional insured, and some want it well before the event. Ask the venue’s event manager for their exact wording for the additional insured line and send it to every vendor with the contract, so that brokers issue the certificate correctly the first time.

Events on public land bring their own insurance requirements. City of Toronto permits for parks and road use, and those of other GTA municipalities, commonly ask for proof of liability insurance naming the municipality. Check the requirement on the permit application before you agree vendor limits, so the vendors’ coverage matches what the city expects.

Questions to ask

When a contract arrives, read it against the outline and ask the vendor: Who exactly will be on site, by name? What happens to my deposit if the event is postponed rather than cancelled? What are your overtime terms, and who can approve overtime on the night? Is there anything you need from the venue (power, parking, a dock slot, a green room) that is not in this document? Who is your insurance broker, and can they issue a certificate naming the venue in the wording I have sent?

Then ask yourself one question: if this vendor did not turn up, would this contract tell me what happens next? If the answer is no, the substitution and cancellation clauses need work.

How this connects to the next lesson

The Module 5 workshop puts every lesson in this module to work. You will book a full vendor team for the Harbour Gala, and each choice will need a contract, a COI and a line on the tracker. Bring the vendor contract outline and the vendor contact sheet with you. For a deeper look at insurance, read Insurance: yours, theirs and the venue’s in Module 8.

Worksheet

Download the worksheet, complete it for your own event (or the running gala example), and keep it in your course binder. It takes about 12 minutes.

Download the worksheet (PDF)