Highwire Prequalification: Construction Contractor's Guide to the Platform

If you are a subcontractor bidding work for top-tier U.S. general contractors, you have probably been pushed onto Highwire at some point. Unlike ISNetworld, Avetta, or Veriforce — which sell into oil and gas, manufacturing, and facility owners — Highwire was built specifically for the construction GC-to-subcontractor relationship. That focus shows up everywhere: the questions, the data model, the analytics, the way scorecards talk about safety culture and project performance instead of generic plant-floor compliance.

This guide explains what Highwire is, who uses it, how the scoring works, what documents you will be asked to upload, what it costs, and how it stacks up against ISN. If a Turner or Suffolk project manager has just sent you a Highwire invitation, this is what you need to know.

What Highwire Is

Highwire is a contractor prequalification and risk management platform headquartered in Concord, Massachusetts. It was founded in 2014 specifically to serve the U.S. commercial construction industry. The core thesis: ISNetworld and similar platforms were built for industrial owners managing maintenance contractors, and they did not fit the project-driven, GC-to-sub world of vertical commercial construction. Highwire built a product around project teams, subcontractor risk profiles, and predictive safety analytics rather than annual MSAs and plant gate access.

Highwire's pitch to GCs is risk segmentation: instead of a binary "approved/not approved," GCs see a probability-weighted risk score per subcontractor and per project, factoring in safety statistics, financial health, project history, and qualitative inputs. For subs, the experience is closer to filling out a thorough qualification questionnaire than to maintaining an ongoing prequalification account — though the data does need to stay current.

Who Uses Highwire

Highwire's customer base is concentrated among the largest U.S. general contractors and a growing roster of construction-heavy real estate developers. Notable hiring clients include:

• Turner Construction
• Suffolk Construction
• Skanska USA
• Gilbane Building Company
• Consigli Construction
• Shawmut Design and Construction
• Walsh Group
• Several large healthcare, life sciences, and higher-ed owners

If your work is concentrated in commercial vertical construction — healthcare, lab/life sciences, higher-ed, data centers, mixed-use, hospitality — and you bid for any of the top 50 ENR GCs, you will run into Highwire. If your work is industrial maintenance at refineries, plants, or pipelines, you will mostly not.

The Highwire Workflow

The onboarding pattern is project-aware in a way that is unusual for prequalification platforms. The general flow:

The unusual stage is the last one: instead of granting a generic "approved status," GCs use Highwire to make project-specific risk decisions. The same subcontractor might be acceptable on a low-risk tenant fit-out and require additional controls on a high-risk hospital or data-center project.

What Highwire Asks For

Document expectations are deeper on the safety-management-system side than ISN, lighter on the regulatory citation pedantry, and heavier on financial and project history. Expect requests in these categories:

Company and Financial

• Company profile, ownership, years in business, license numbers
• Audited or reviewed financial statements (often required for projects above a contract-value threshold)
• Bonding capacity letter from your surety
• D&B credit profile or equivalent

Insurance

• Certificate of Insurance covering CGL, auto, umbrella/excess, workers comp, professional, pollution where relevant
• Specific endorsements: additional insured (ongoing and completed operations), waiver of subrogation, primary and non-contributory
• Project-specific COIs may be required separately

Safety Performance and Programs

• EMR for the last three years, on carrier letterhead
• OSHA 300A summaries for the last three years
• TRIR, DART, severity rate, fatalities, OSHA citations
• Written safety programs: HazCom/GHS, fall protection, scaffolding, electrical, excavation, confined space, hot work, PPE, fleet, drug and alcohol
• Crisis response and emergency action plan
• Subcontractor management program (because you also hire subs)

Project History and Qualitative Inputs

This is where Highwire diverges most from ISN. Subs are asked about typical project sizes, geographic footprint, key personnel, training programs, near-miss reporting culture, leading indicators (safety observations, toolbox talks, JSAs), and self-perform vs. sub strategy. Some questions are scored quantitatively, others feed qualitative GC-side review.

Scoring: Predictive Risk Index

Highwire's scoring model is its differentiator. Instead of a letter grade or simple green/yellow/red, the platform produces a predictive risk index that combines:

• Lagging safety statistics: TRIR, DART, EMR, fatalities, severity rate
• Leading indicators: training hours per worker, near-miss reporting rate, safety observation frequency, JSA usage
• Financial health: liquidity, leverage, bonding capacity, payment history signals
• Project profile fit: experience with the project type, geography, and complexity at hand
• Qualitative program assessment: depth of written programs, executive commitment, training matrix

The index produces a score that GCs use as one input — not the only one — to project assignment decisions. The practical implication for subs: leading-indicator data matters. If you have invested in observation programs, near-miss reporting, and proactive safety culture, Highwire will reflect that in your score in a way ISN largely will not.

Pricing

Highwire's pricing model differs from the older platforms. Subcontractors typically pay an annual subscription to maintain a profile and connect to GC clients, with tiers driven by company size and number of GC connections. Entry tiers have historically run in the $500–$1,500 range for small subs with a couple of GC relationships, scaling into the multi-thousand range for larger subs across many GCs. Some GCs cover or subsidize sub fees; others pass them through. Verify with Highwire and your GC contact directly — pricing is not publicly listed and varies.

Crucially, Highwire generally does not charge for written-program-by-written-program review the way ISN's RAVS does. The trade-off: GC reviewers and Highwire account managers do their own evaluation, and feedback is less standardized than ISN RAVS comments.

Highwire vs. ISNetworld

For broader context on how the major industrial platforms compare, see Veriforce vs ISNetworld and Avetta vs ISNetworld.

Pros and Cons

Pros

• Built specifically for vertical commercial construction — the workflow fits how GCs actually buy
• Leading indicators get credit; investment in observation and near-miss culture pays off in your score
• Project-specific risk scoring means a strong sub on simple projects is not penalized for not having data-center experience they do not need
• Lighter pedantic review than ISN RAVS — fewer rounds of "cite 1910.147(c)(4) explicitly"
• Strong analytics dashboards on the GC side, which translate into clearer feedback to subs

Cons

• Smaller hiring-client base than ISN; not useful if your customers are industrial owners
• Financial disclosure requirements (audited statements, bonding letters) are heavier than industrial platforms
• Less standardized written-program feedback — comments vary by reviewer
• Project-specific decisions mean you can be approved-and-rejected on the same week for different jobs, which can confuse field teams
• Smaller third-party ecosystem (consultants, templates) than ISN

Setting Up Cleanly

1. Pull your financials early. Audited or reviewed statements take weeks to produce if you do not have them current. Talk to your CPA the moment you receive a Highwire invitation.
2. Get your surety on speed dial. Bonding capacity letters are routine but require lead time, especially if your bonding line has changed in the last year.
3. Stage three years of OSHA 300A and EMR letters. Make sure EMR letters are on carrier letterhead, not internal spreadsheets.
4. Document leading indicators. If you run a safety observation program, near-miss reporting, or daily JSAs, get the metrics on paper. This is where Highwire scoring rewards you most relative to ISN.
5. Make sure your written programs are current. Highwire reviewers are less pedantic than ISN RAVS but still expect modern program content. If you are starting from a template, reference our breakdown of HazCom/GHS for contractors and audit other programs the same way.
6. Use an ISN setup as a head start. If you already have a clean ISN account, most of your written programs and stats translate directly. Our First-Time ISNetworld Setup Checklist covers the document staging that also serves Highwire well.

The Bottom Line

Highwire is not a replacement for ISNetworld — it is the platform for a different industry segment. If your customers are top-tier U.S. construction GCs working on commercial vertical projects, Highwire is increasingly the gate you have to pass through. If your customers are industrial owners, ISN, Veriforce, and Avetta will dominate. Many specialty subs that work both commercial construction and industrial maintenance — MEP trades, fire protection, controls, scaffolding — end up on multiple platforms.

What Highwire rewards more than the older platforms is genuine investment in safety culture: leading indicators, near-miss reporting, observation programs, and modern written programs. Subs that have built that work into their operations land favorably; subs trying to game numbers look obvious in the scoring model. The good news for serious safety-minded subs: Highwire makes that investment visible in a way ISN's letter grade does not.

PrequalPilot manages your safety programs, training, COIs, financials, and grades for Highwire, ISNetworld, Avetta, Veriforce, and other prequalification platforms in one place — with automated expiry alerts so you stay in good standing on every account. See pricing →