diff --git a/src/fstalign.cpp b/src/fstalign.cpp
index 4509533..28eaa6f 100644
--- a/src/fstalign.cpp
+++ b/src/fstalign.cpp
@@ -555,7 +555,7 @@ void align_stitches_to_nlp(NlpFstLoader& refLoader, vector<Stitching> &stitches)
   }
 }
 
-void write_stitches_to_nlp(vector<Stitching>& stitches, ofstream &output_nlp_file, Json::Value norm_json) {
+void write_stitches_to_nlp(vector<Stitching>& stitches, ofstream &output_nlp_file, Json::Value norm_json, bool add_inserts = false) {
   auto logger = logger::GetOrCreateLogger("fstalign");
   logger->info("Writing nlp output");
   // write header; 'comment' is there to store information about how well the alignment went
@@ -565,7 +565,7 @@ void write_stitches_to_nlp(vector<Stitching>& stitches, ofstream &output_nlp_fil
                   << endl;
   for (auto &stitch : stitches) {
     // if the comment starts with 'ins'
-    if (stitch.comment.find("ins") == 0) {
+    if (stitch.comment.find("ins") == 0 && !add_inserts) {
       // there's no nlp row info for such case, let's skip over it
       if (stitch.confidence >= 1) {
         logger->warn("an insertion with high confidence was found for {}@{}", stitch.hyptk, stitch.start_ts);
@@ -596,6 +596,10 @@ void write_stitches_to_nlp(vector<Stitching>& stitches, ofstream &output_nlp_fil
       }
 
       ref_tk = original_nlp_token;
+    } else if (stitch.comment.find("ins") == 0) {
+      logger->debug("an insertion was found for {} {}", stitch.hyptk, stitch.comment);
+      ref_tk = "";
+      stitch.comment = "ins(" + stitch.hyptk + ")";
     }
 
     if (ref_tk == NOOP) {
@@ -627,8 +631,8 @@ void write_stitches_to_nlp(vector<Stitching>& stitches, ofstream &output_nlp_fil
   }
 }
 
-void HandleWer(FstLoader& refLoader, FstLoader& hypLoader, SynonymEngine &engine, string output_sbs, string output_nlp,
-               AlignerOptions alignerOptions) {
+void HandleWer(FstLoader& refLoader, FstLoader& hypLoader, SynonymEngine &engine, const string& output_sbs, const string& output_nlp,
+               AlignerOptions alignerOptions, bool add_inserts_nlp) {
   //  int speaker_switch_context_size, int numBests, int pr_threshold, string symbols_filename,
   //  string composition_approach, bool record_case_stats) {
   auto logger = logger::GetOrCreateLogger("fstalign");
@@ -687,7 +691,7 @@ void HandleWer(FstLoader& refLoader, FstLoader& hypLoader, SynonymEngine &engine
 
     if (!output_nlp.empty()) {
       ofstream nlp_ostream(output_nlp);
-      write_stitches_to_nlp(stitches, nlp_ostream, nlp_ref_loader->mJsonNorm);
+      write_stitches_to_nlp(stitches, nlp_ostream, nlp_ref_loader->mJsonNorm, add_inserts_nlp);
     }
   }
 
diff --git a/src/fstalign.h b/src/fstalign.h
index 0fd60ca..929c220 100644
--- a/src/fstalign.h
+++ b/src/fstalign.h
@@ -50,8 +50,8 @@ struct AlignerOptions {
 // void HandleAlign(NlpFstLoader *refLoader, CtmFstLoader *hypLoader, SynonymEngine *engine, ofstream &output_nlp_file,
 //                  int numBests, string symbols_filename, string composition_approach);
 
-void HandleWer(FstLoader &refLoader, FstLoader &hypLoader, SynonymEngine &engine, string output_sbs, string output_nlp,
-               AlignerOptions alignerOptions);
+void HandleWer(FstLoader& refLoader, FstLoader& hypLoader, SynonymEngine &engine, const string& output_sbs, const string& output_nlp,
+               AlignerOptions alignerOptions, bool add_inserts_nlp = false);
 void HandleAlign(NlpFstLoader &refLoader, CtmFstLoader &hypLoader, SynonymEngine &engine, ofstream &output_nlp_file,
                  AlignerOptions alignerOptions);
 
diff --git a/src/main.cpp b/src/main.cpp
index 6cfb8ce..c2d63fd 100644
--- a/src/main.cpp
+++ b/src/main.cpp
@@ -34,6 +34,7 @@ int main(int argc, char **argv) {
   bool record_case_stats = false;
   bool use_punctuation = false;
   bool disable_approximate_alignment = false;
+  bool add_inserts_nlp = false;
 
   bool disable_cutoffs = false;
   bool disable_hyphen_ignore = false;
@@ -122,6 +123,7 @@ int main(int argc, char **argv) {
                     "Record precision/recall for how well the hypothesis"
                     "casing matches the reference.");
   get_wer->add_flag("--use-punctuation", use_punctuation, "Treat punctuation from nlp rows as separate tokens");
+  get_wer->add_flag("--add-inserts-nlp", add_inserts_nlp, "Add inserts to NLP output");
 
   // CLI11_PARSE(app, argc, argv);
   try {
@@ -148,12 +150,12 @@ int main(int argc, char **argv) {
                 FSTALIGNER_VERSION_PATCH);
 
   auto subcommand = app.get_subcommands()[0];
-  auto command = subcommand->get_name(); 
- 
+  auto command = subcommand->get_name();
+
 
   // loading "reference" inputs
   std::unique_ptr<FstLoader> hyp = FstLoader::MakeHypothesisLoader(hyp_filename, hyp_json_norm_filename, use_punctuation, !symbols_filename.empty());
-  std::unique_ptr<FstLoader> ref = FstLoader::MakeReferenceLoader(ref_filename, wer_sidecar_filename, json_norm_filename, use_punctuation, !symbols_filename.empty()); 
+  std::unique_ptr<FstLoader> ref = FstLoader::MakeReferenceLoader(ref_filename, wer_sidecar_filename, json_norm_filename, use_punctuation, !symbols_filename.empty());
 
   AlignerOptions alignerOptions;
   alignerOptions.speaker_switch_context_size = speaker_switch_context_size;
@@ -176,7 +178,7 @@ int main(int argc, char **argv) {
   }
 
   if (command == "wer") {
-    HandleWer(*ref, *hyp, engine, output_sbs, output_nlp, alignerOptions);
+    HandleWer(*ref, *hyp, engine, output_sbs, output_nlp, alignerOptions, add_inserts_nlp);
   } else if (command == "align") {
     if (output_nlp.empty()) {
       console->error("the output nlp file must be specified");
@@ -345,4 +347,4 @@ std::unique_ptr<FstLoader> FstLoader::MakeHypothesisLoader(const std::string& hy
     hypOneBest->LoadTextFile(hyp_filename);
     return hypOneBest;
   }
-} 
+}