Is your bounce house company actually insured? Here is how to check.

Look at ten party rental websites in Indiana and roughly ten of them will say "licensed and insured." The phrase has become wallpaper. It appears in footers, on about pages, and in ad copy, and typing it requires no policy, no premium and no paperwork.

That is not an accusation aimed at anyone in particular. Plenty of companies that say it are telling the truth. The problem is that the claim and the proof look identical from the outside, and the moment you actually need the coverage is the worst possible moment to discover which one you booked.

The good news is that verifying it takes about five minutes and one email. Here is exactly what to ask for.

Three documents settle the question

Everything else is conversation. These are the artifacts.

1. A current certificate of insurance

A certificate of insurance, almost always called a COI, is a single page issued by the insurance company or the broker. That detail is the entire point: it does not come from the rental company, so it is far harder to invent than a sentence on a homepage.

A real COI names the insurer, the policy number, the coverage limits and, critically, the policy period. Ask for it by name and ask for the current one.

2. An additionally insured endorsement, if your venue wants one

If your party is in a public park, at a school, at a church, in an HOA common area, or on corporate property, the venue will often require that it be added to the rental company's policy for the day. That addition is called an additionally insured endorsement, and it is issued per event with the venue named on it.

This is worth asking about early, because venues frequently require it with a deadline attached and some rental companies either cannot produce one or charge meaningfully for it.

3. A W-9, if you are booking through an institution

Not an insurance document, but the one that stalls institutional bookings most often. School district and corporate accounts payable departments generally cannot set up a new vendor without a W-9 on file. If you are a PTO treasurer or an office manager, ask for it in the same email as the COI and save yourself a week.

How to actually read a certificate of insurance

Most people request a COI, receive a PDF, see an official looking form, and file it without reading it. Three fields are worth thirty seconds of attention.

• The policy period. Two dates. Your event date has to fall between them. This is the single most common problem with a certificate, and it is usually innocent: the company sent whatever was last saved to the desktop, and the policy renewed since. Check it anyway.
• The general liability limits. Usually shown as a per occurrence figure and an aggregate figure. If your venue specified a minimum, this is the number it wants to see.
• The certificate holder box. If you asked for your venue to be added, the venue should appear here or in the description of operations. If you asked and it is blank, the endorsement was not actually issued.

If the document has no insurer named on it, or it is a screenshot rather than a certificate, treat that as your answer and ask again.

Insurance and safety training are not the same thing

This distinction gets collapsed constantly, and it matters.

Insurance is what responds after something has already gone wrong. Training is what reduces the chance of it going wrong in the first place. A company can carry a perfectly valid policy and still stake a unit badly.

One credential you will see in this industry is SIOTO, the Safe Inflatable Operators Training Organization. It is a separate question from insurance and worth asking separately, because a certificate proves a company bought a policy, not that the person driving to your house has been trained on how to set up and anchor an inflatable safely.

The follow up question is the useful one: is the person who sets up my unit certified, or just the owner?

The questions to ask, word for word

Copy these into an email. A company that has its paperwork in order will answer all six quickly and without friction.

• "Can you email me your current certificate of insurance?"
• "Does the policy period on it cover my event date?"
• "Can you add my venue as additionally insured, what does it cost, and how long does it take?"
• "Is your crew safety certified, and will a certified person set up my unit?"
• "What is your wind and rain policy, in writing, and what happens to my deposit?"
• "Are units cleaned and disinfected between rentals?"

You are not being difficult. Any established company has answered these hundreds of times and has the files sitting in a folder.

What a good answer sounds like

Speed and specificity, mostly. A company with real coverage attaches the certificate rather than describing it, gives you a number for the additionally insured fee rather than "we can look into that," and states its weather policy as a rule rather than a maybe.

The warning signs are the mirror image. Verbal only assurances, a certificate that never quite arrives, vagueness about who does the setup, or a weather policy that appears to be decided per customer.

How we handle it, so you can compare

Our 2026 Insurance Certificate and our 2026 W9 form are posted as downloads on our Important Documents page, so you can check them yourself rather than requesting them and waiting.

KidZone Party Rentals is licensed and insured in Indiana with a general liability policy, and we are SIOTO certified. Additionally insured certificates naming your park, school or venue are $25 per event. The business has been owned and run by the same family, Nathan and Becky Suddarth, since 2010.

Use the six questions on any company you are considering, including us. A vendor that gets annoyed by them is telling you something useful.

Common questions