When a worker gets hurt on a construction site, two questions follow almost immediately: who pays the judgment, and who pays the defense? Owners and general contractors typically pursue two mechanisms to transfer risk and shift those costs to subcontractors: contractual indemnification and additional insured coverage. Most parties assume these mechanisms work in parallel.

If the indemnity clause is triggered, so is the additional insured obligation, and vice versa. The New York Court of Appeals’ recent decision in Dibrino v. Rockefeller Center North, Inc., 2025 N.Y. Slip Op. 07077 (Dec. 18, 2025), casts out that assumption, leaving no doubt that these two mechanisms operate under different legal standards and that the outcome under one does not control the outcome under the other.

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