COI expiration tracking: four ways GCs stay ahead of lapses

A certificate of insurance shows a sub's policies on the day it was issued. If a policy lapses mid-project, the PDF in your files looks exactly the same, so someone has to watch the dates. Expiry tracking comes down to answering one question every week: which certificates on my active jobs have expired or are about to, and whom do I need to chase?

Below are four ways general contractors answer it, what each does well and where each one breaks.

This is general information, not legal or insurance advice.

Why it's harder than it looks

The date on the certificate is the easy part. Each sub has several policies (general liability, workers' comp, auto, sometimes an umbrella), and each renews on its own date. Renewals don't line up with your projects. A sub can send you a clean certificate in January and have a lapsed policy by June. Tracking has to be a routine, not a step at onboarding.

1. A spreadsheet and calendar reminders

One row per sub, a column for each policy's expiry date, and reminders 30 days out.

What works: It's free, flexible and familiar. For a few long-term subs, a well-kept spreadsheet is enough.

Where it breaks: The sheet knows only what someone typed. Every new sub, renewal and correction is manual entry, and when entry slips the sheet goes stale while still looking right. A policy nobody entered never produces a reminder. It fails silently, which is the worst way to fail.

2. A shared team calendar

Expiry dates go into a shared Google or Outlook calendar, so the whole office sees them.

What works: Tracking doesn't depend on one person being in the office, and the alerts land somewhere people look all day.

Where it breaks: A calendar holds dates, not certificates, limits or additional insured status, so the documents live somewhere else and the two drift apart. It also has no idea whether the renewal came in. The event fires either way, and nothing records the follow-up.

3. Your insurance broker

Some brokers will collect and review subs' certificates against your requirements.

What works: Brokers read certificates for a living. A good one catches problems a busy project manager misses: additional insured wording, limits below your contract, missing endorsements.

Where it breaks: What brokers do here varies, and so do turnaround and whether it's billed. Their view of which subs are on which jobs is secondhand. Get the scope in writing: what they check, how often and how they tell you. COI tracking software vs. your broker goes into the trade-offs.

4. COI tracking software

Software reads the dates from each certificate, files it under the sub and the job, and sends reminders before the dates arrive, to you and, if you set it up, to the sub.

What works: Documents and dates live together, reminders don't depend on anyone remembering to set them, and one screen shows every expired or expiring certificate on your active jobs. A renewal counts when the new certificate arrives, not when someone asks for it.

Where it breaks: It tracks what you give it. If new subs or project assignments aren't added, it tracks the wrong list very neatly. And it only knows the dates printed on the certificate: a policy cancelled mid-term for non-payment won't show up until someone tells you. It doesn't replace expert review of unusual requirements, either. Software for tracking plus a broker for review is a sound pairing.

A weekly routine

The routine matters more than the tool:

1. Pull the list of certificates expiring in the next 30 days on active jobs.
2. Deal with anything already lapsed first. No new work from that sub until a current certificate arrives.
3. Ask for renewals early, about 30 days ahead, so there's time before the date.
4. Check what comes back: dates, limits and additional insured status against your contract.
5. Close each item only when the valid replacement is on file.
6. Note the slow responders, and ask them earlier next time.

Choosing one

A handful of steady subs can run on a disciplined spreadsheet or calendar. When manual entry falls behind and a lapse has already slipped through, software earns its place, ideally with a broker reviewing the certificates you can't afford to get wrong. Pick the system you'll run every week.

TradeGuard reads each certificate, alerts you and the sub at 90, 60 and 30 days by default, and shows every sub who isn't covered today. It has a 14-day trial with no card.