We walked the SCA's $21 billion plan last week (The SCA Has $21 Billion. Here's the Part You Can Actually Bid On.). This is the part of the bid book that plan never mentions. That plan carries $900 million for wrap-up insurance — a big number that tells you nothing about what you get on one school job, what you still have to buy, and who pays when something breaks.

So here's the question this piece answers: what does the SCA's insurance actually cover, and what's still on you? To get it, we read a current SCA Invitation to Bid front to back — a Queens interior-and-exterior repair job let in August 2026 under the authority's standard Construction Contract and its October 2022 General Conditions — along with the public Owner Controlled Insurance Program manual the contract pulls in by reference. Short version: the SCA covers the big stuff on site. Everything that rolls, everything you own, and everyone who leaves the gate is yours.

“The SCA covers the big stuff on site. Everything that rolls, everything you own, and everyone who leaves the gate is yours.”

What the SCA's program covers. Every prime and every enrolled sub is a named insured under the SCA's OCIP — owner-controlled insurance program, meaning the owner buys one policy for the whole job and everybody works under it — and the SCA pays the premium. Per the June 2026 manual:

The GL comes with a seven-year completed-operations tail. And here's the thing — the SCA expects to see that savings in your number. The Information for Bidders says your price "should reflect the cost savings resulting from this SCA-provided coverage." Leave your full GL and comp load in the estimate and you're bidding against people who didn't.

What you still have to carry. The General Conditions put it on you to "determine their actual exposures and to obtain additional insurance." Outside the wrap-up, you're buying:

• Plant, tools and equipment. The contract says so in so many words. Your excavator is your problem.
• Auto liability. $2,000,000 combined single limit on owned, non-owned and hired vehicles, including loading and unloading at the site. Hauling hazardous material? Add an MCS-90 endorsement at $5,000,000.
• Off-site workers' comp. OCIP comp "will cease for any employee when leaving this Site." So the shop, the yard, and the drive over are on you: statutory comp plus $1,000,000 employer's liability. Abatement and environmental contractors get no OCIP comp at all — they carry their own on site too.
• Your own CGL. At least $1,000,000 per occurrence and $2,000,000 aggregate on an ISO occurrence form, no XCU exclusion, no wrap-up exclusion, kept three years past final completion. The SCA, the Department of Education and the City of New York go on as additional insureds on CG 20 10 and CG 20 37, primary and non-contributory, with waiver of subrogation and 30 days' notice of cancellation. Carrier rated A- VIII or better.
• Bonds and disability. Not in the program.
• Professional liability. The bid book never mentions it. If the job carries any delegated design, that's a broker conversation, because the SCA isn't covering it.

One more: suppliers, off-site fabricators, haulers and design professionals can't enroll at all. If you're bringing one, they're on their own paper.

The deductible comes out of your check. Now, the part that bites. The builder's risk all-risk deductible is $100,000 per property-damage event — same for water damage, higher in flood zones. The contractor "shall be responsible for losses within the respective deductible," defense costs included, and the chargeback "may be withheld from progress payments if not reimbursed." Let's say a pipe lets go over a weekend and floods two classrooms. The SCA's policy responds — and the first $100,000 of that claim is yours, out of your next requisition if you don't write the check first. The bid book points you at that page before you price, which is the SCA's way of saying you were warned. And the SCA reserves the right to change deductibles "at any point in time without additional notice."

How enrollment works. The prime files the Request for Insurance form (Appendix I) on receipt of the Notice of Intent to Award — class codes, estimated on-site payroll, experience mod, current carriers. Subs enroll through the Subcontractor Approval Form in the Vendor Access System. You have to submit an application for every eligible sub. Skip one and the contract warns of "exclusion from the insurance program for any unenrolled Subcontractor" and reduced coverage on that sub's work — so the sub you forgot is the sub who's uninsured. Keep SCA payroll separate, by comp class, for three years after substantial completion; the program gets audited every year, and on-site losses feed your mod.

The bonds. Three numbers: 5, 100 and 100.

• Bid security: 5 percent, bond or certified check, processed electronically through Surety 2000.
• Performance and labor-and-material payment bonds: 100 percent of the contract price each, on the SCA's own forms, from a Treasury-listed surety the SCA accepts. Due "immediately" on the Notice of Intent to Award, or your bid bond is forfeited.
• They grow. Every change order that raises the price obligates you to raise the bonds to 100 percent of the new figure, no notice required, with the surety's invoice due at closeout.
• They can be pulled. If the SCA sours on your surety, you've got five days to replace it, and no money moves until you do.
• Read the forms. The surety has to start completing the work within 20 days of notice; payment-bond claimants without a direct contract give 120-day notice and can sue after 90 days; suits run two years.

Two more items ride with the bid: a financial statement under a year old, and the line-of-credit and backlog schedule at Appendix H, which the SCA runs through a formula weighing "the Bidder's backlog of work and its current financial strength." Your surety is going to see that same backlog number. Bring them in early — not the week the bid is due.

What to do with this. Hand your broker the OCIP manual and the bid book's Article 14 and ask three things: what does our program duplicate, what gap do auto and off-site leave, and can we eat a $100,000 property deductible out of a progress payment. Then price the bid net of the coverage the SCA is buying — because your competitor already did.

This is a read of one bid book, not legal advice. The project-specific contract controls; have your broker and counsel review it.