Construction Insurance Certificate Management App

If you run a large construction company, then you need to make sure that your contractors and subcontractors have certificates of insurance. These are standardized forms that list the insurance coverage carried by the contractors, vendors, or other third parties you hire. When it comes to a certificate of insurance explained, this includes the carrier, the limits of the listed coverage, the effective dates, the expiration date, and may include any exceptions, limitations, and exclusions. Usually, this certificate of insurance is issued by an insurance agent and delivered to the contractor to provide to you, proving that they have the right protection before you start your project.

If you have numerous active third parties, it can be difficult to keep track of all of their certificates of insurance, which can make it difficult to ensure that your third-parties have the coverage you require. You could be sifting huge piles of documents looking for the correct construction insurance certificate. Therefore, you have to be able to quickly and efficiently review and verify your certificates of insurance so you can move forward with your project. That is why you need to follow all certificates of insurance best practices and store them in a manner that is easy to index. That is where a construction insurance certificate management app such as myCOI is helpful.

Certificate Of Insurance

If you’re a contractor, you need to have a certificate of insurance for business for the insurance policies your business has. There are probably lots of insurance policies you carry at your company. These include:

• General liability insurance, which covers the potential liability you take on with each project, such as construction projects
• Commercial auto insurance, which covers your vehicles and drivers during the job
• Commercial property insurance, which protects any real estate you might have or lease for your business
• Workers compensation and Employers Liability

When it comes to certificates of insurance 101, you need to make sure you have accurate certificates to represent all of your policies. Don’t just trust a certificate of insurance PDF. Know what you’re looking for.  A few critical elements include:

• The limits of your protection
• The effective and expiration dates, which define when that  policy is active
• Your insurers or carriers, which are your insurance companies

You should not be creating your own COIs. Even though you should review your certificates, it is essential to rely on a specialized third party like your insurance agent to produce them. This is one of the services that your policy premiums pay for. That way, you know you have the proper protection for your company the next time you start a project.

Certificate Tracking

Even though you can track insurance policies on Excel spreadsheets, there is a better method. Certificate tracking usually refers to a process that a company uses after it receives its COIs. The common processes range from by hand, from a file cabinet or binder to full-fledged software and service solutions like myCOI.

You might be wondering how long to keep certificates of insurance, and the suggested retention period is approximately five years; however, every business and state has slightly different requirements. Therefore, it is vital to take a look at the requirements in your state.

Even though manual tracking is how most companies start, a file cabinet or spreadsheet can get old very quickly. As your business grows, you will acquire more COIs that are going to make tracking them by hand nearly impossible. Therefore, you may start a project without the required protection. Instead, you should be using an automated solution, such as myCOI. That way, you have access to an expert insurance team to keep track of your certificates for you. You will know exactly what insurance coverage you have, what you need to verify, and what you require to start your next project.

Certificate Of Insurance Compliance

Certificate of insurance compliance is the work a risk manager or compliance admin does to collect, verify and maintain the certificates of insurance provided to that company by its third parties. Almost anyone a business hires to do work on its behalf can be asked to provide some form of proof of insurance. And on the face of it, that sounds like a pretty easy ask.

Collect a piece of paper? A standardized form? And store it? Simple. 

Except each certificate of insurance has to be checked, first and foremost to ensure that it claims all the necessary coverages, amounts, limits, and exclusions that your company requires of its contractors. Sure, there is general liability insurance mentioned, but does it protect to the same amount that you require?

Also, what assurances do you have that the contractor didn’t let the policy lapse the day after they handed you the COI? Are you verifying with insurance agents that these contractors still hold the policies and protections that their COI claims? Are there exclusions to the contractor’s protection that will mean you’re held responsible for risk that should properly rest with the contractor?

Remember that there are varied certificate of insurance requirements by state, and you need to be aware of them. Certificate of insurance best practices in every case remind you to check your state requirements, and we’d be remiss if we didn’t do the same.

How To Organize Certificates Of Insurance

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 certificates of insurance.

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. They don’t know which vendors need a certificate of insurance, or trust that the certificate of insurance explained everything necessary. In addition to having legal consequences, failing to keep track of your company’s certificates could lead to financial losses. It also increases the likelihood of liability lawsuits filed against your business..

And if you’re asking “when do you need a certificate of insurance from a vendor?” The answer is before the work starts. Every time. Anything else opens you to incredible risk. If you work in risk, and you don’t know how to request a certificate of insurance from a vendor, find out as soon as possible.

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 COI tracking software, 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. 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 before we talk about myCOI pricing.

COI Tracking 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 a certification tracking spreadsheet 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.

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.

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.