What COI Compliance Means

What people are pointing at

When a contract, a lease, or a project rule says a company must carry insurance, “COI compliance” is the practical question of whether you have evidence that matches that rule, for the right party, for the right place, on a date that still covers the work. The evidence is usually a certificate of insurance, sometimes with endorsement forms beside it.

The rule is not written by a tracking tool and not by this website. It is written in the agreement you already signed, or in the exhibit your counsel approved. If that document is silent, the requirement is unknown. Do not fill the silence with a limit you saw on someone else’s certificate.

People also use “COI compliance” for the ongoing condition, not a single upload. A certificate that matched the contract in March can fail it in April because a policy ended, the named insured changed, or the company started a different job with a different exhibit. Compliance is a status you re-check. It is not a sticker.

The pieces inside a requirement

Agreements differ. These are the pieces reviewers are usually asked to look for. None of them is optional or required until your agreement says so.

Who must be covered. The named insured on the certificate should be the party you contracted with, unless the agreement allows an affiliate. A trade name that does not match the legal name is a question, not a pass.
Which lines. Commercial general liability, automobile, workers’ compensation, umbrella or excess, and professional liability are common examples. Your exhibit may name a shorter or longer list. The verification checklist is the comparison, line by line.
Limits. The figures in the contract, compared with the figures printed on the certificate. This site does not publish sample limits. A figure that was acceptable at one building can be short at another.
Additional insured. When a policy provides it, additional insured status comes from the policy or an endorsement, not from your wish to be protected. Being listed as the certificate holder only means the summary was addressed to you. The holder field explains the difference.
Waiver of subrogation. When a policy provides it, a waiver is a policy term. A sentence on the certificate is a clue. If your agreement requires the endorsement form, the sentence is not the last step.
Other endorsement wording. Primary and noncontributory language, or per-project wording, is the same kind of item: a contract request, sometimes a remark, confirmed in the forms if that is your standard. This page will not choose the standard.
Dates. Each required line has an effective date and an expiration date. Compliance lapses when the earliest required date passes and no reviewed replacement is on file. The renewal process is how teams notice that before the date, not after a claim.

ACORD publishes the certificate forms commonly used in the United States. ACORD 25 is the liability certificate. ACORD 28 is evidence of commercial property insurance. They are not interchangeable. Editions differ, so read the form in your hand. This site does not reproduce those forms.

How tracking supports it

COI tracking is the system that makes the compliance question repeatable. It records what you asked for, what arrived, who reviewed it, which requirement set applied, and when each required line ends. Without that record, “we are compliant” means someone remembers a PDF.

Tracking supports compliance in four ordinary ways:

The request names the contract, so the certificate that comes back can be compared with the right exhibit. Wording you can adapt is in the request letter.
The review writes a status a person set, not a status the file created by existing. Received is not accepted.
The renewal watch uses the earliest required date, including a blank required date, which is a gap.
The report shows who is current, who is expired, and who never sent anything, to a person who can act.

A spreadsheet can hold that record while one person can see it. The column spec is the shape. Software in this category is a system of record for the same jobs. The category page explains the jobs. The fact sheets cite what named vendors’ public pages claim, and they leave the rest unknown. The shortlist is how to compare if you decide to look.

Construction jobs and property portfolios use the same idea with different exhibits. See construction and property management.

What a compliant status does not mean

It does not mean the insurer will pay a particular claim. Exclusions and the facts of the loss live in the policy and the claim.
It does not mean an aggregate limit is still available. A certificate usually shows the limit written on the policy, not what remains.
It does not mean the policy is in force this morning if you last looked at a certificate months ago. Cancellation can happen before the printed end date. Whether you will be notified is a policy question. Unknown from this page.
It does not survive a new contract, a new building, or a new project automatically. The exhibit may have changed.
It is not created by a software status that only means “a file was uploaded,” unless your standard says that is enough. Most contracts ask for more. Whether yours does is in the contract, not in a marketing screenshot.

Where to go next

Corrections: info@coitracker.com.