Insurance Accidents Can Happen In Only One Days’ Time

Certificate of insurance tracking is an often overlooked and not-so-glamorous role, but one that’s absolutely critical to your organization’s success and financial stability. It’s the job of a compliance administrator to collect and review every certificate of insurance (commonly called a COI) and all of the supporting documentation, such as endorsements. The job in and of itself can be incredibly overwhelming, and if a step is missed or an item isn’t collected, it can cost your organization big bucks, along with a tarnished reputation.

Does your team manually track certificates today? If so, how confident are you that your compliance administrator has all of the tools they need, along with the time they require, to do a sufficient and complete job going through all of the required steps to make sure nothing is missed?

Is your team able to keep on top of expiration dates and determine when it’s time to reach out to vendors and subcontractors when their certificates of insurance are up for renewal? In addition, Is your compliance admin regularly checking those same vendors or subcontractors for coverage gaps? Unfortunately, and with huge risks associated, most executives would have to say “no”, but they aren’t even aware of exactly what kind of significant financial and legal risk that means to the organization.

Accidents Can Happen In One Day’s Time

Even in your own personal life, you know the mantra: “when you least expect it” things can happen. And unfortunately, it’s no different in the world of insurance – especially when it comes to things outside of your control, like accidents on the jobsite.

That’s why monitoring coverage and minimizing gaps is so critical to your compliance and ultimate protection. While it’s true that all contracts supposedly “require” a 30-day cancellation notice, the reality is that most insurance carriers aren’t legally obligated to send notice. Meaning that you may not be aware that one of your contractors or vendors is actually uninsured. Most aren’t aware that this key element of the process rarely happens as it is supposed to, and without close monitoring, can be a huge risk.

While monitoring certificates of insurance is important, yes, that’s only part of the process. Just having COIs on hand doesn’t guarantee coverage and doesn’t mean that a policy actually exists at all. Few executives know that their contractors and vendors can make a simple phone call to cancel their insurance coverage or reduce their coverage to minimize the cost at any moment, and your organization is none the wiser. Even worse? This can happen the day after the policy is actually issued!

Subcontractors and Vendors Can Stop Payments

If that’s not enough to watch out for, your subcontractors and vendors can easily fall behind or even choose to stop paying their insurance premiums, all to save a few bucks. But for your organization, that means their coverage could have been dropped and they may be on a jobsite without coverage, leaving a big gap that your organization may have to resolve. While these scenarios may not happen often, it truly only takes one incident or one day for a significant issue to take place that could set your organization back both in reputation and in finances. That’s why it’s so vital to spot check subcontractors and vendors that may be falling behind.

Now are you confident that your compliance administrator is keeping track of these nuances? If you aren’t certain, then your organization could face significant legal issues.

All of these “gray areas” of uncertainty leave your organization exposed to risk in ways you may not even be aware.

Certificate of Insurance Tracking Services

Ready for some good news after all of that depressing talk? With certificate of insurance tracking services, your team doesn’t have to spend time scanning for gaps and checking up on high-risk vendors. After all, they probably have many other responsibilities beyond certificate of insurance tracking alone.

myCOI is a cloud-based software solution and exists for one reason: to help you handle the task of certificate of insurance management and to protect your company against underinsured claims, costly litigation and failed audits. The software and insurance tracking services are combined into an easy-to-use solution developed and supported by a team of insurance professionals and is built on a foundation of insurance industry logic to automate the certificates of insurance communication process and ensure you remain protected.

With a policy verification program built right into myCOI’s certificate of insurance tracking software, the burden doesn’t have to be on your organization. Don’t let high-risk vendor transfer unnecessary risk to your organization. Instead, ensure your organization has a system in place to help monitor gaps and defend against issues like the above.

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