Contractors and subcontractors are roles often in high demand. In the fast-paced world of construction, teams have to act quickly to secure credible talent and get projects moving. However, you want to do your due diligence to ensure your workers are properly qualified and protected for the job you’re hiring them for.
Retaining subcontractors is a whole other ball game, especially because of the many disputes related to payment, communication, insurance, claims, and project delays that can come up on a job. Fostering strong relationships, providing good pay and consistent work opportunities when possible, and effectively managing contractor COIs are a few ways hiring managers can prioritize contractor retention. In this article, we’ll dive deep into how effectively managing your COIs is one of the most important things you can do to foster team loyalty and improve subcontractor retention.
How Managing COIs Helps You Retain Subcontractors
Hiring and retaining skilled craftspeople can be challenging for many reasons, including an ongoing industry-wide labor shortage. The level of professionalism that you showcase throughout the COI management process is a major driver of whether or not a subcontractor will enjoy their time working with you – and whether they’ll want to do it again. Let’s discuss some of the reasons that effective COI management can help you retain your hired subcontractors.
Create A Great First Impression
From your first interaction with a subcontractor, you should be setting the tone and expectations for the relationship. An organized COI management process can create a positive first impression for the subcontractors you hire, making them feel confident working with you. It establishes credibility and professionalism for you as an employer to be efficient in your COI collection, fostering trust in newly established working relationships.
Keep Projects On Schedule
Effective COI management ensures that construction projects can proceed smoothly without interruptions due to delays in getting necessary insurance documentation sorted. Timely verification and tracking of subcontractor COIs prevents delays associated with insurance-related issues. Mitigating risk through careful COI collection, verification, and management will be one of the best ways to keep project timelines on track, respecting your subcontractors’ time and cementing you as a reliable, safety-first client.
Keep Communication Flowing
Crafting standards and processes for what to communicate and when regarding COI management is another great way to streamline projects, ultimately leading to improved subcontractor retention. Regular reminders about upcoming COI deadlines, renewal dates, insurance requirement changes, and more can help prevent misunderstandings and possible compliance issues, helping your hires while protecting your business.
Protect Everyone In Case Of Disputes
When third-party COI collection is done carefully and correctly, it ultimately provides legal protection for all parties involved in a construction project. By certifying that all subcontractors maintain adequate insurance coverage for the job at hand, COIs mitigate the risk of financial losses that result from any incurred damages or disputes. This protects the subcontractors themselves, the general contractor(s), and other project stakeholders from potential legal consequences in the event of a claim.
Provide A Great Experience
Subcontractors don’t want to spend time marketing, prospecting, and finding new clients. They’d rather establish strong, long-standing relationships with reliable project owners. Effective COI management will alleviate the administrative burden on subcontractors and provide peace of mind to both hiring parties and those being hired. With strong COI management practices, you can help subcontractors maintain compliance, complete projects on time, and feel well-supported, creating a seamless process from hire to hopeful rehire.
How Our COI Management Is Different
While running your COI management efforts in-house is possible, many construction companies and general contractors have elected to put their compliance efforts into safer hands. At myCOI, we understand the challenges and frustrations of managing COIs and ensuring compliance. We know just how frustrating an unexpected claim can be. That’s why we’ve made protecting you and your stakeholders our life’s work. Read on to learn how our COI management platform and team can help you feel safe.
Streamline Your Tracking
We combine the best technology with real-life specialists, allowing you to scale your operations and improve your COI management process. You can rely on insurance certificate collection automation to help you save time, while the expert-backed platform will provide guidance to ensure that each of your hires maintains compliance across projects. Our best-in-class customer support team is also equipped to handle any support needs and questions that may arise as you use our platform.
Nurture Your Third-Party Partner Relationships
myCOI helps you nurture your relationships with your third-party partners so that instead of protecting yourself from them, you’re protecting yourself and them. The same level of expertise and efficiency that we offer to our clients is extended to their subcontractors so that working with you feels easy and your partners feel protected.
Deepen Your Understanding Of Your Exposure
myCOI gives you visibility into risks you might not know about and counsel to help you make confident decisions for your business. We’ll dive deeper into your third-party partners’ policies to understand all your risk details, then pass on our expert guidance to you. Together, we’ll uncover areas where you’re not compliant and help you glean exactly why and how to fix it.
The Best Technology And The Best Coaching
It’s not just our awesome platform, complete with features like Certificate Hub, Risk Insights, Communications Director, Insurance Agent Portal, and Compliance Manager, that make us the best in the business. Real-life insurance experts continually inform our leading-edge automation, and by working with us, you’ll always have those same experts coaching you in real time. With the best technology and the best coaching in the field, myCOI helps remove blind spots and reduce your exposure to risk at scale every time. You can feel secure, and so can your hires.
myCOI: A Best-in-class COI Management Platform
We are here to help you navigate the complexities of hiring, retaining, and maintaining compliance for each subcontractor you bring on. When working with us, you gain a team of insurance experts to identify blind spots and fill the gaps—people on your side who care, listen, and coach.
Remove the friction and frustration of compliance for everyone involved. Book a call with us today to learn how.ases, so it can be helpful to contact some of the major insurers when looking to verify that a policy exists.
Finally, state insurance department resources can also be valuable. Some states provide services that help individuals locate life insurance policies, especially if the insurer is licensed within that state.
Tracking Down Coverage? Not a Problem!
Ensuring adequate levels of insurance coverage is an important risk management strategy for individuals and businesses. Whether for you or for someone else, understanding the ways to go about confirming someone’s insurance coverage can help you gain confidence in your protection.
Need more help with learning about insurance tracking and verification? You’re in the right place. Reach out to us today to learn how myCOI can support you.