Does Contract Requiring Subcontractor to Name Contractor as Additional Insured Violate Anti-Indemnity Statute?
Kegler Brown Construction Newsletter November 1, 1998
In this case, a general contractor had required his subcontractor to name him as an additional insured, and the subcontractor did so. The Court construed the "additional insured" clause to only cover losses resulting from the negligence of the subcontractor but not the general contractor (the additional insured) in view of the anti-indemnity statute (O.R.C. §2305.31) that makes unenforceable agreements requiring a party to indemnify another for the other's own negligence. Buckeye Union Ins. Co. v. Zavarella Bros. Constr. Co. (1997), 121 Ohio App. 3d 147.
This means that general contractors in Ohio will be unable to achieve indirectly, through being named as an additional insured, what they cannot receive directly in indemnity provisions — an agreement for the subcontractor to protect them from their own negligence.