---
title: "Does the Applicant use written contracts or agreements with its customers for the provision of services or products?"
url: https://insuranceposture.com/questions/services-and-contracts/applicant-written-contracts-agreements-customers-provision-services-products
category: "Services and contracts"
canonical_key: q_pro_006
evidence_state: attested
updated: 2026-08-24
---

# Does the Applicant use written contracts or agreements with its customers for the provision of services or products?

URL: https://insuranceposture.com/questions/services-and-contracts/applicant-written-contracts-agreements-customers-provision-services-products
Section: Services and contracts
Evidence state: Attested, not tenant-verifiable

Without a written contract, every protective term you would have relied on simply does not exist.

## What the carrier is actually asking

The carrier is asking whether services and products are supplied under written agreements. It sets up the questions that follow about liability caps, warranties, and acceptance, all of which require a contract to live in.

## Why it is underwritten

Liability limitation, consequential damages exclusion, warranty scope, and acceptance criteria only bind if they were agreed in writing. Where work proceeds on a purchase order or an email, the terms default to whatever the law and the client's expectations supply, which is invariably worse for you.

## Where the answer lives in Microsoft 365, Entra ID, and Azure

This is a contract estate question, and coverage across the estate is what matters rather than the quality of the template.

| Platform | Where the setting lives | What has to be true |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Contract estate | Proportion of revenue under signed written agreements | Coverage across clients, including small and legacy ones. Attested |
| Templates | Standard terms and what they contain | Liability cap, damages exclusion, warranty scope, and acceptance provisions |
| Process | Whether work can begin without a signed agreement | A control preventing unsigned engagements, since urgency is how they happen |
| Whose paper | Which side's terms usually govern | Client paper frequently strips your protections, so knowing the split matters |
| Renewals | Long-running relationships operating on expired terms | Current agreements rather than ones that lapsed years ago |

**Long relationships drift out of contract**

The riskiest engagements are often the oldest ones: a client from years ago whose original agreement expired, where work continues on purchase orders. The relationship is excellent and the contractual position is nothing.

## What a defensible yes requires

- Substantially all revenue is under signed written agreements.
- Standard terms carry liability limitation and damages exclusion.
- Work cannot begin without a signed agreement or a documented exception.
- The split between your paper and client paper is known.
- Long-running relationships are on current agreements.

## How this answer goes wrong

The answer is yes based on the standard process, while a review finds several long-standing clients operating on expired agreements or none at all. Those relationships carry the terms of no agreement, which is the worst position available.

## If this answer turns out to be wrong

Technology E&O questions describe what you promised your own clients, and the policy language decides how strictly your description of that is held. Whether anything follows from an inaccuracy depends on materiality, on the policy wording, and on the law of the governing state: [whether an answer is a warranty or a representation](https://insuranceposture.com/glossary/warranty). The other consequence terms are collected in the [glossary](https://insuranceposture.com/glossary).

## Frequently asked

### What if clients insist on their paper?

Common with larger clients. Negotiate the key protections, and know which ones you conceded so the residual exposure is deliberate.

### Do purchase orders count?

Only if they incorporate terms by reference. A bare purchase order supplies price and quantity and no protection.

### What are the essential terms?

Liability cap, consequential damages exclusion, warranty scope, acceptance criteria, and clear scope. The following questions ask about each.

### Does clickwrap work?

For standard products generally yes, when properly implemented with evidence of acceptance. For bespoke services a signed agreement is stronger.

## Related questions

- [Do the Applicant's client contracts contain limitation of liability clauses benefiting the Applicant?](https://insuranceposture.com/questions/services-and-contracts/applicant-s-client-contracts-contain-limitation-liability-clauses-benefiting)
- [Do the Applicant's client contracts exclude consequential damages in the Applicant's favor?](https://insuranceposture.com/questions/services-and-contracts/applicant-s-client-contracts-exclude-consequential-damages-applicant-s)
- [Do the Applicant's client contracts address guarantees or warranties?](https://insuranceposture.com/questions/services-and-contracts/applicant-s-client-contracts-address-guarantees-warranties)
- [Do written agreements with third parties contain defense/indemnification + insurance requirements?](https://insuranceposture.com/questions/third-parties/written-agreements-third-parties-contain-defense-indemnification-insurance-requirements)

---

Insurance Posture by SecValley. https://insuranceposture.com
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