Get the Best General Contractor Certificate of Insurance Tracking Tools

General Contractor Certificate Of Insurance Tracking Tools

Have you ever looked at a huge building and wondered what it took to build it? How many hours, how many days, how many people had to be involved? If you’re on the risk management team at the company that built the building, you know exactly. Because you had to receive, track, and verify each of the certificates of insurance from all of those contractors.

Many of those companies rely on some form of general contractor certificate of insurance tracking tools, due to the sheer number of certificates they must keep track of. Those that don’t, or that choose the wrong insurance tracking tools, find themselves spending far more on staffing, claims, and carrying more risk than they should as a result of their projects.

And of course, no project team wants to hold up the project timeline while you make a  request for proof of insurance from contractors.

At myCOI we work with companies that employ hundreds or thousands of general contractors to help them track, confirm, verify and maintain high compliance ratings that save them hours, dollars, and exposure to risk more properly carried by the general contractors they hire. Our expert insurance team and our proven certificate of insurance tracking tools help us fulfill our mission of erasing the worry of insurance compliance.

The general tenor of what our customers say about us is “we spend so much less time worrying about certificates now.”

Let’s look at what certificate of insurance tracking is, how it works, what methods many companies have attempted to do it, and see if we can help you figure out the right solution for your company.

Best Certificate Of Insurance Tracking Software

The competition for the best certificate of insurance tracking software is fierce, and we’d be being dishonest if we didn’t say you need to choose the right solution for your company. Obviously, at myCOI we believe we are the right solution nine times out of ten, but we don’t fit every company, and that’s okay. That’s just one of the reasons we pay close attention to myCOI reviews.

You’ll need to define what “success” means for your business. Is it the least expensive? That depends on how you measure cost. In pure dollars, a free COI tracking software may work, but is it reliable? Do its developers offer support? Are there regular product updates coming out? If not, check it carefully to make sure it isn’t out of date.

Is “best” the least of your precious person-hours consumed by insurance certificate tracking certificates of insurance? Then a managed solution like myCOI offers may be best. Our team of insurance professionals know what they’re looking at, and they’re experts in making sure your certificates are promising what they say they do, that they meet your business requirements for coverage, and our quarterly verification makes sure the coverage stays in effect.

Take it from us, though, you need something more powerful than an expiration date tracker. Software to track expiration dates does nothing to confirm that the coverage on the COI matches the coverage you require, or that it’s even valid. True, useful certificate tracking requires more than that.

Certificate Of Insurance Compliance

Knowing how to organize certificates of insurance for tracking is a necessity for any company that hires third parties such as contractors or vendors. A certificate of insurance tracking solution allows businesses to track certificate of insurance compliance 

One of the most common mistakes that businesses make is not keeping accurate records of certificates of insurance. This puts them at risk for fines and penalties if they do not have up-to-date documentation on hand when requested by a third party, such as an attorney. . In addition to having legal consequences, failing to keep track of your company’s certificates could lead to financial losses. Remember that certificate of insurance requirements by state can vary a great deal. It also increases the likelihood of liability lawsuits filed against your business. Knowing who needs to provide a certificate of insurance is one of the core components of risk management.

It’s not just those who hire contractors and vendors that need to track certificates of insurance. Property managers who host commercial tenants also need to ensure those tenants are carrying the proper insurance. We often see the duty of securing and verifying these COIs fall on property managers, instead of dedicated risk teams, so we strongly suggest having on hand a sample letter requesting proof of insurance, so you can quickly request the COIs you need to manage your property’s risk. 

It’s not just tenants, either. Knowing how to request a certificate of insurance from a vendor before you allow them to work on your property is a key component of liability risk management.

Insurance Certificate Issuance Software

Insurance certificate issuance software is not something non-insurance companies typically have to worry about. The insurance company is responsible for issuing certificates of insurance to the company. If you’re an owner or manager, it’s crucial that you know what your responsibilities are and how those differ from someone in this role at another firm. Whether it comes down to handling employee-related matters or discussing business strategy with clients, a basic understanding of these roles will go a long way when forging relationships within your industry.

Sometimes people mention certificates of issuance, but that’s a different certificate. These testify to the issuance of certificates for things like bar codes or identification numbers. As it sounds, it’s a certificate of issuance meaning it certifies that something was issued. This is why COIs should always be issued by the insurance agent or broker, because who can sign a certificate of insurance? The person certifying the coverage.

Instead of wasting time asking “what is certificate of issuance?”, focus on tracking your own certificates of insurance. With a COI tracking application, you’ll never need to worry about tedious paperwork again. You can also make sure that your records are always up-to-date thanks to automated updates from vendors.

Track Insurance Policies On Excel Spreadsheet

If you’re looking for a simple and manual way to track the certificates of insurance in your business, then using a COI tracking spreadsheet is an option worth considering. Many companies begin by having their staff track insurance policies on Excel spreadsheets. And for smaller companies just starting out, that system works. For basic certificate of insurance tracking spreadsheets are not a bad solution.

Many companies find spreadsheets a good training tool; for a certificate of insurance tracking template Excel has several basic templates that can be customized to what you need, but most companies scale past this very quickly.

The drawbacks of using an Excel insurance tracker are that they can be time-consuming to maintain and often require constant updating. What began as a simple project one person could track and easily snowball into a time-intensive process that’s impossible to scale as a company grows. Instead, companies might add more people and more spreadsheets, which leads to paperwork being lost or misplaced, which leads to increased chances for errors in the data.

That is exactly the worry that myCOI erases. Our systems are industry-leading. Our insurance professionals are top-notch. If you’re tracking hundreds of certificates of insurance, we’d love the chance to show you just how much time and effort we can save you.

Free COI Tracking Software

Running a business is expensive, and sometimes the last thing you want to add is another expense, even when you have a need. We can’t tell you how many times we’ve heard companies tell us that they were doing their best: they knew about insurance tracking services, but the budget was just too tight, so they did it with Excel or a free COI tracking software. For a while, they did okay. As an insurance tracker Excel is better than nothing. Sometimes they tried to make do with free renewal tracking software or apps.

But their compliance percentage slipped down a little every month, as their business grew and more and more certificates were received. Each of those certificates had to be tracked and verified. Each month, more certificates than the last.

At a certain point, the amount of unnecessary risk they were assuming got to be too much, and they had to look for a more professional solution. Sometimes it’s because their risk management team or general counsel audits and realizes the exposure. Sometimes a new hire discovers a distressing reality that had gone unnoticed.

Unfortunately, sometimes it’s because the company just had to pay a damaging claim that they should have been covered for.

Free COI tracking software is not inherently bad, and almost no one sets out to make bad software. But it takes a dedication to customer service, a mission to erase worry, and a team of insurance professionals like the one we’ve assembled at myCOI to make sure your company is doing all it needs to with its certificates of insurance. At myCOI integrations we’ve built with other software make us a powerful option, and a key component people ask about in myCOI demos.

Certificate Of Insurance Explained

The concept of a certificate of insurance (COI) is not a new one, and it’s not uncommon at all for people to want to have a certificate of insurance explained. In a very basic form, you probably have a certificate of your auto insurance in your car or your wallet. The form is a bit more complex for business general liability insurance, but the concept is the same: a document issued by an insurer saying that the bearer is insured against certain actions to certain levels of protection.

Most agents or brokers will give you a certificate automatically, or offer you a way to request your certificate of insurance online via their website.

Now that we’ve talked about how important certificates of insurance are, let’s look at an example of what one looks like. By far the most common general liability form is the ACORD 25 general liability insurance form, but you should check a certificate of insurance PDF from whatever source your company uses.

All of the fields are clearly labeled, and your agent or broker should provide it to you already filled out, but let’s look at the high points. The Insured box should have your name or your company’s name in it since it’s certifying your insurance. Depending on your coverage, you may see values in the General Liability box, the Automobile Liability box, or the Umbrella/Excess Liability box, and so on.