What does a schedule usually demand?
Public liability, professional indemnity, workers compensation, and motor vehicle, each with a per-occurrence and aggregate limit, each with evidence specified: certificates of currency, insurer details, expiry dates. Construction and high-risk services add contract works, product liability, and sometimes principal-arranged cover with its own conditions. Defence scopes add their own thresholds; see indemnity in defence tenders for that context, not repeated here.
The schedule is not the whole story. Endorsements, exclusions, excess levels, and territorial limits live in your policy wording; read the schedule against the actual policies, with your broker, before asserting compliance.
The schedule-to-broker matrix
| Schedule row | Extract | Ask the broker |
|---|---|---|
| Public liability $20m | Limit, per-occurrence vs aggregate, evidence required | Held today? Upgrade cost and lead time if not? |
| Professional indemnity $5m | Limit, retroactive date, run-off expectations | Does current wording cover this scope and contract term? |
| Workers compensation | State of engagement, contractor vs employee treatment | Cover valid in the delivery state, for this workforce mix? |
| Timing clause | Held at lodgement, award, or mobilisation, and whichwhich | Can binders or quotes satisfy the earlier date if full cover needs weeks? |
Figures above illustrate the matrix shape; your pack’s limits govern. Never present “we can get it” as held cover: a certificate you do not hold at the required date is a failed mandatory however confident the broker sounds.
How do insurance and indemnity interact?
They answer different questions. The indemnity allocates who pays for what loss; read it on indemnity and liability. Insurance funds your capacity to pay up to its limits and conditions. An uncapped indemnity against a $5 million PI tower is a gap you carry personally: name it, price it, qualify it, or walk from it. Comcover guidance and Finance materials frame the Commonwealth side; your policy wording frames yours.
What does this mean for the bid/no-bid call?
Unheld cover at the required date is a no-bid unless a binder the pack accepts can be evidenced in time, decided with the broker’s written answer, not the room’s optimism. Held cover with a premium uplift is a pricing input: add the quote to the price before the gate, on price to win versus price to deliver.