The question this piece answers: what insurance and what bonds does NYCHA make you carry, and who decides? Short version — there's no owner-controlled program at the Housing Authority. You carry your own coverage, and NYCHA tells you which package by assigning your scope a template number. That number, not the dollar value of the job, sets your limit. Bonds come from a different document entirely and depend on what kind of contract it is.

We read three current NYCHA packages — a citywide HVAC maintenance IDIQ, an apartment floor-tile requirements contract in Brooklyn, and two elevator rehabilitation RFQs in Brooklyn and Manhattan — against NYCHA's public insurance templates (2021), the NYCHA Procurement Policy Manual v5 (July 2025), and HUD Form 5370, the federal general conditions its funded work runs under. This is the insurance-and-bonding layer of the core profile, NYCHA Has $7.8 Billion and Three Front Doors.

“Same brick, five times the limit — because the template says so.”

The template decides the limit. NYCHA's Insurance Requirements Guide maps each trade code to a template. The templates are public, dated July 6, 2021, and still the current set:

So a tile shop and an elevator shop can be in the same building on the same day, and one's carrying a $1 million CGL while the other's carrying $5 million. Same brick, five times the limit — because the template says so.

Every template carries the same conditions: statutory workers' comp with a waiver of subrogation; CGL on ISO CG 00 01 or equivalent; auto on CA 00 01 at $1,000,000 combined single limit, waivable only if no vehicle touches NYCHA property; NYCHA as additional insured, waiver of subrogation, and primary and non-contributory on the liability policies; carriers rated A- VII or better. Blanket endorsements count.

Now, two clauses do the real work, and your broker needs to hear both. Policies "may not exclude claims arising from any activity" in the scope, and liability policies may not exclude "over-action" claims — the New York Labor Law suits an injured worker's employer ends up defending on NYCHA's behalf. A CGL with a Labor Law exclusion fails the template. Full stop. Pollution policies, where they're required, must cover on-site, off-site and in-transit conditions.

Compliance runs through NYCHA's insurance-tracking portal, not a certificate stapled to the bid, and a non-compliant file "will lead in delays in your work or payments." That's NYCHA's wording, typo and all — and the message is that your cert problem becomes your cash-flow problem.

Federally funded work also sits under HUD's General Conditions (HUD Form 5370), which add builder's risk on work in place — waived for modernization without structural alteration when NYCHA can endorse its own policy — and require a claims-made CGL to carry a retroactive date and a five-year extended reporting period.

The bonds depend on the contract type. The NYCHA Procurement Policy Manual v5 (July 2025) sets the floor for construction and facility-improvement work above the small-purchase threshold. Bid guarantee: 5 percent of the bid price. On an IDIQ or requirements contract priced by unit prices times estimated quantities, 5 percent of that total. On an IDIQ with no total price, 100 percent of the stated contract minimum; on a requirements contract with no total, 100 percent of the anticipated first task order. Performance and payment bonds: 100 percent of the contract price each, before award. And on IDIQ and requirements contracts: 100 percent of the contract minimum (IDIQ) or the first task order (requirements), plus a surety letter committing capacity up to the contract maximum for the full term, with bonds on the excess as task orders pass the bonded amount.

The three packages land right where the rules say they should. The elevator rehabilitations carry a 5 percent bid bond and 100 percent performance and payment bonds. The HVAC maintenance IDIQ lists all three at 100 percent of contract with a $50,000 minimum. And the apartment tile requirements contract requires no bonds at all — instead it screens bidders on net liquid assets, 15 percent of the contract and active balance up to $100,000 and 7.5 percent above that, plus three prior contracts of $50,000 or more. Let's say you're a tile shop with no bonding line: that contract is built for you. Let's say you're a $5 million elevator firm without a surety capacity letter: you're not getting to award.

PLA or no PLA. The tile contract's form of proposal says it "is not subject to a project labor agreement" because its task orders will mostly fall under $250,000, the figure above which the PLA generally attaches. The Marcy Houses elevator package went out as an RFQ expressly labeled non-PLA, for 70 elevators in 27 buildings. Here's why that matters beyond the union question: NYCHA's manual says Wicks Law separate specs apply above $3 million unless a PLA is in place, and both elevator RFQs carry a separate electrical package. Bid one and you're a prime coordinating with another prime — not a GC with an electrical sub. Every bidder also files NYS Labor Law 220-i registration certificates for itself and each listed sub with the bid.

What to do with this. Find your template number before you call the broker, and read the sample certificate NYCHA publishes for it. Ask your broker one question — does my CGL carry a Labor Law or action-over exclusion? — because that's the line that fails. On an IDIQ, get the surety's capacity letter early; NYCHA wants it before award, and sureties don't write those on a Friday afternoon.

The project-specific contract controls; this isn't legal advice — have your broker and counsel review it.