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illumend CEO Kristen Nunery Reframes AI's Role in Third-Party Insurance Compliance

illumend Founder and CEO Kristen Nunery challenges the industry to stop treating AI as a speed tool—and start treating it as the operational infrastructure that determines whether construction, real estate, and manufacturing partnerships actually get off the ground.

illumend CEO Kristen Nunery Reframes AI's Role in Third-Party Insurance Compliance

February 23, 2026 · Press Release · Indianapolis, IN


illumend™, the AI-powered platform for third-party insurance compliance and COI management, published a new thought leadership article by Founder and CEO Kristen Nunery that challenges how construction companies, real estate developers, property managers, and manufacturing operators think about AI's strategic role in contractor and vendor compliance.

Nunery's core argument: AI in third-party insurance compliance isn't primarily an efficiency play. It's partnership infrastructure. When businesses in construction, commercial real estate, and other contractor-dependent industries treat AI as a day-one operational foundation—not an afterthought—they eliminate the ambiguity that stalls projects before they start.

Why it matters for construction and real estate compliance teams: As subcontractor lists grow and onboarding timelines compress, the cost of certificate of insurance (COI) delays has never been higher. Compliance gaps between general contractors and subcontractors—or between property managers and vendors—routinely cause project delays, resubmissions, and last-minute surprises that impact schedules and margins. Nunery contends that legacy COI compliance systems make this worse by introducing inconsistent interpretation and disconnected workflows that neither party can see or act on in real time.

What AI changes about third-party insurance compliance: According to Nunery, AI-driven third-party insurance compliance shifts the function from a reactive checkpoint to proactive relationship infrastructure. The primary impact isn't speed—it's alignment. When AI applies insurance requirements consistently, explains outcomes in plain language, and surfaces compliance status to all parties before work begins, partnerships move faster and trust builds earlier. Owners, operators, general contractors, and their subcontractor ecosystems all operate from the same clear picture.

illumend's AI assistant, Lumie, embodies this philosophy—delivering instant compliance feedback, plain-language explanations of insurance requirements, and real-time COI tracking across contractor and vendor networks. illumend is built on more than 15 years of third-party insurance compliance expertise developed through myCOI, which has managed compliance for over one million contracts and 200,000 third parties across the U.S.

Relevant to: General contractors, construction risk managers, commercial real estate developers, property management firms, retail and manufacturing operators, and the insurance brokers who serve them.