TOP PICK

JONES
 TrustLayer SmartCompliance Billy BCS MyCOI CertFocus
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Turnaround Time
 <24h full audit✨Seconds to AI Compliance SnapshotFast 48h standardNot consistently guaranteedReasonable ~48 hoursDelays up to a week reportedSlow 48h standardDepends on complexity and tierReasonable Variable turnaround timesSeveral days for human-reviewed casesReasonable 2–5 days standardSpikes to 7–14 days during renewalsSlow Multi-day turnaroundNot consistently guaranteedSlow
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Auditing Depth
 Full Scale Model
(AI Agent + Experts)✨Built for Construction and Real EstateComprehensive		 OCR + AI extractionAuditing service lacks insurance depthLimited OCR-based extractionAuditing service lacks insurance depthLimited OCR + AI extractionGC-FocusedStandard OCR + AI extractionService-heavy COI management (Generalist)Standard OCR + “Illumend” AI extractionService-heavy COI management (Generalist)Standard OCR + AI extractionService-heavy COI management (Generalist)Standard
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Vendor Experience

 No login • No fees✨Branded communicationFrictionless No login • No feesGeneric communicationDecent Login requiredGeneric communicationCumbersome No login • No feesGeneric communicationDecent No login • No feesGeneric communicationDecent Login requiredGeneric communicationCumbersome Registration + FeesGeneric communicationCumbersome
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System Integrations
 Procore, Sage, Vista, CMiC, MRI, Yardi +✨Procore’s most complete compliance integrationComprehensive Procore, Vista, CMiC–Standard Procore, BILL, FranConnectMissing CRE/Construction integrationsLimited Procore, CMiC, Sage, Vista–Standard Procore, MRI, Yardi, Vista +Lacks Sage integrationStandard Procore, Sage, Vista, CMiC, MRI, Yardi +Multiple CRE/Construction integrationsComprehensive Procore, CMiC, Sage–Standard
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Service Model & Pricing
 Usage-basedSimple fee per record ✨Unlimited users, audits and supportPredictable Tiered/CustomUsers report renewal pricing varies significantlyUnpredictable Tiered + Add-onsBase plans exclude key features; expensive add-onsConditional Per RecordCosts increase linearly with every new record addedConditional Per VendorVariable fees per vendor pile up quickly as you scaleConditional Custom QuoteDifficult to budget; complex pricing modelUnpredictable ModularComplex fees (Software vs. Service vs. Vendor Pay)Unpredictable

Who Are the Main Players in 2025?

The COI tracking landscape for Construction and Real Estate breaks into four groups:

1. Generalist COI Management

  • myCOI – a long-standing, generalist COI solution used across multiple industries with a recognizable brand name.
  • BCS – service-heavy COI management software for multiple industries, including CRE and Construction.
  • CertFocus – COI tracking for multiple industries with a professional, service-heavy back end.
  • Docutrax – legacy COI tracking and management service providing deep insurance brokerage expertise.
  • Ebix – legacy solution for multiple industries offering a general insurance services suite with COI auditing as one of many offerings.

2. AI- and OCR-Forward Tools

  • TrustLayer – OCR-first + AI document extraction; self-service UI layer for insurance auditing and verification.
  • SmartCompliance – OCR-based compliance management; less emphasis on insurance depth.
  • PINS – OCR-based COI tracking for logistics, transportation and construction.
  • Injala – Pure-play OCR workflow and automation including a self-service UI layer for manual auditing.
  • Evident – Insurance verification network, often deployed via brokers.
  • Certificial – Data infrastructure for real-time COI updates for insurance agencies and brokers serving end customers in multiple industries.

3. GC-Focused Full-Service Tools

  • Billy – modern COI and document management for General Contractors with value-added features for Subcontractors.

4. Vertical AI + Expert-validation

  • Jones – purpose-built for Construction and Real Estate portfolios; combines expert-trained AI with a large team of insurance auditors.

What “AI-Powered COI Tracking” Really Means in 2025

“AI” is used loosely across the category, making it difficult for buyers to distinguish real AI capabilities from marketing claims and limited “AI Wrappers”.

Based on product research, customer conversations, and competitive analysis, we’ve identified three functional categories that clarify what you’re actually getting:

1. Professional Service Model: Basic Automation + Managed Services
How it works:
Basic workflow automation accelerates insurance collection through automated emails and vendor portals. But insurance auditing, compliance verification, and integration remain manual. Service teams must audit data against requirements, resolve compliance gaps, and manually enter information into third-party systems.
Impact:
You get depth when service teams are well-trained, but turnaround times typically stretch to several days or weeks. Without well-trained insurance experts, audit quality can vary, especially when volume increases.
2. Self-Service Model: OCR/AI + Software Tools
How it works:
OCR models complete the first step to extract, classify, and structure insurance data, requiring service teams to audit the data against individual insurance requirements manually. More advanced models may flag missing fields, expired dates, or insurance limit gaps, then route them to the operations team for full auditing.
Impact:
The software may provide basic automation, but does not encode insurance logic to complete the more time consuming step of full insurance auditing. Greatly reduces manual data entry and speeds up basic checks, but core work remains manual. These tools can tell you what’s there, but not whether the policy truly meets your contract requirements. The burden of interpreting edge cases still sits with your team.
3. Full Scale Model: AI Agents + Expert Validation
How it works:
Automated AI agents are trained on insurance logic to handle extraction, classification, auditing, routing, compliance gaps, and integration, while insurance experts validate edge cases and monitor accuracy, specifically policy language in COIs, endorsements and policies to achieve contract compliance where exposure is material or AI confidence is low.
Impact:
The system delivers efficiency (AI automates most of the auditing work) without compromising on depth (insurance experts validate coverage and edge cases) to actively reduce claim exposure at scale.

The distinction comes down to where expertise lives. In service-heavy models, expertise depends on human review capacity, which limits speed. In self-service models, expertise sits with your team, requiring knowledge you may not have, which may provide speed but limits depth.

The third approach, which we call the Full Scale Model, encodes insurance logic into the system and pairs it with expert auditing to scale compliance seamlessly, accelerating actual AI-powered risk management across any portfolio size.

Speed vs. Accuracy in COI Management

Most teams switch COI tracking solutions because they’ve hit one of two road blocks:

  • Too slow: Documents sit in queues for days or weeks, especially during January and July renewal spikes. Vendors can’t get on site, tenants wait on approvals, and internal teams spend time chasing status updates.
  • Too inaccurate: OCR-based tools mark certificates as “compliant”, but miss critical policy language in COIs and endorsements.

For high-volume CRE and Construction portfolios, neither road block works. You need fast turnaround so vendors can be approved in hours, not days, and deep enough review to catch coverage gaps before they become insurance claims.

That’s the advantage of full scale models: AI intelligently processes data and flags compliance issues, while specialists make the final call on unique coverage gaps that require validation. This combination removes the time consuming and error-prone work so teams can focus on decisions that carry real risk.

AI Replacing Legacy OCR

The shift from Optical Character Recognition (OCR) to true document intelligence with AI agents is well underway. Traditional OCR tools read COIs by extracting and classifying text fields, like policy numbers and expiration dates, but lack the ability to understand and reason through policy language. This results in a dangerous gap: documents may appear “compliant” but in fact contain risk exposure.

AI-powered COI verification, on the other hand, interprets documents the way a trained auditor would. Instead of merely extracting data, the AI agent is trained to understand policy context, interpret language in COIs and endorsements (e.g., Waiver of Subrogation, Completed Operations), and verify compliance across all use cases, including pesky edge cases.

Why AI Agents Still Need Human Experts

AI models trained on insurance documents can dramatically reduce manual data entry and speed up deterministic validation. But in high-stakes environments like CRE and Construction, small differences in wording can materially change coverage.

The full scale model is increasingly the standard for teams that care about both speed and accuracy rather than trading one for the other.

Jones leads this shift by combining domain-specific AI agents (trained on tens of millions of COIs and 50,000+ insurance rules) with expert human validation. This hybrid model shrinks turnaround time while maintaining accuracy, enabling teams to move faster without increasing risk.

Prebuilt Compliance Networks Accelerating Time to Value

Vendor networks are becoming a major differentiator among COI tracking solutions. These networks store previously verified documents and accelerate vendor onboarding.

Some solutions such as TrustLayer and Certificial promote automated vendor networks for faster COI collection and authentication. But in practice, many of these “networks” are just vendor directories showing historical data that relies on oversight by insurance brokers, not actively maintained compliance records.

The Jones Network, by contrast, is a fully operational compliance network tailored to Construction and Real Estate. With over 110,000 vendors and subcontractors, it solves a visibility problem that has plagued the industry: teams waste time searching for vendors project-by-project, with no way to see if a vendor already has current insurance on file somewhere in the system.

Teams can browse a unified directory of vendors, filter by trade or market sector, sort by location and popularity, and see compliance history with Jones Risk Ratings. From there, they can invite vendors directly to projects and properties with one click. This eliminates the need to search for vendors project-by-project and accelerates onboarding from days to seconds.

Use Case Snapshots

Scenario 1: ENR 400 General Contractor
A national ENR General Contractor juggles hundreds of active projects and thousands of subcontractors at any given time. The COI management solution must keep up with:
  • Frequent onboarding of new subs who need site access quickly
  • Project-specific insurance requirements that change by project, trade, scope and contract
  • Field teams who live inside Procore, CMiC, Vista or Sage
  • Stop gap on subcontractor payments if insurance is not compliant

In this environment, purely manual verification causes jobsite delays and payment issues, while OCR- and AI-only tools trade accuracy for speed, exposing the GC to uninsured losses and project interruptions that impact schedules and subcontractor relationships.

Scenario 2: National CRE Portfolio
A national CRE owner-operator manages thousands of vendors and hundreds of tenants, with large insurance renewal spikes in January and July. A COI management solution here must:
  • Maintain consistent turnaround times even at renewal peaks
  • Ensure tenant insurance meets lease requirements without causing service frustration
  • Surface compliance status inside MRI, Yardi or similar systems so property teams do not have to do double entry in multiple portals
  • Minimize friction for vendors and tenants by avoiding unnecessary logins or surprise registration fees

Real Estate teams in this category often move away from legacy tools not just because of feature depth, but because of business impact: slow, manual reviews can’t keep up with renewal spikes and leave systems of record out of sync with active compliance status, increasing workload and risk exposure at the worst possible moments.

Scenario 3: Third-Party Property Manager
Third-party property managers enforce insurance requirements on behalf of building owners across multiple properties. An effective COI solution for them must:
  • Automate collection and reminders so coordinators aren’t manually chasing every vendor and tenant to submit their COIs
  • Provide clear, consistent gap descriptions that vendors, tenants, and their brokers can easily respond to and resolve
  • Offer straightforward reporting on compliance rates and risk exposure to the portfolio
  • Not add friction with mandatory logins or vendor registration fees

Without these capabilities, third-party PMs become compliance administrators rather than risk advisors, spending thousands of hours on back-and-forth emails instead of delivering the strategic oversight their owners expect.

How to Choose the Right COI Tracking Solution

Feature lists are useful, but most buying decisions come down to a handful of practical questions about value and ROI:

1. What turnaround time do we actually need?
If your team needs to approve vendors in less than 24 hours, especially during renewal season, waiting days or weeks for verification can slow projects down and create last-minute problems. Ask for real-world turnaround data from companies of your scale and size, and request customer references to cut through the marketing noise.
2. How deep does our audit need to go?
For low-risk vendors, AI and OCR-based tools may be enough. For multifamily residential, commercial, institutional, mission critical, environmental or high-value work, you likely need expert validation on what the COI claims, what the policy actually says, and what the contract requires. Clarify exactly what each platform audits and where your team still needs to step in.
3. What will this feel like for our vendors and tenants?
Login requirements, vendor registration fees and confusing communication all translate into slower COI collection and more escalations. Review the actual communications, informational links and upload flows your vendors will see, not just the admin interface. Also consider the customer support infrastructure–how quickly will your vendors and tenants get their questions answered?
4. How does this connect to the systems of record we use?
For CRE and Construction teams, the real value appears when compliance data surfaces in Procore, CMiC, MRI, Yardi, Vista, Sage, and other systems of record, not only in a standalone web-based software application. Ask whether integrations are embedded, bi-directional and near real-time, or limited to nightly syncs and manual exports.
5. Is the pricing model predictable?
Usage-based pricing makes sense in some cases, but it makes budgeting difficult. Ask whether pricing is per-COI review, per-vendor, or flat-rate, and whether vendors or tenants are charged fees. If you’re an enterprise Owner, Operator or General Contractor, volume-based discounts may be available.
6. Does this platform actually specialize in our industry?
Generalist tools can work for smaller portfolios. As volume and risk increase, Construction and CRE expertise becomes more important. Look for proof that the software provider understands vertical specific workflows, not just generic COI tracking.

Where Jones Fits in This Landscape

For General Contractors and Real Estate Managers that need to protect their assets from third-party claims but are drowning in insurance paperwork, Jones is a vertical AI company that automates and streamlines the insurance management process.

Unlike competitors, Jones is not just another COI tracker. We combine the accuracy of insurance experts with AI agents trained on insurance logic to deliver industry-leading speed and expert depth, enabling seamless scale for any volume of insurance documents.

Jones is typically the best fit when you need:
  • Consistent, fast turnaround on reviews, including during renewal spikes
  • AI agents + Insurance experts to validate the edge cases and custom client requirements that matter most in the COI, policy language, and contractual requirements
  • No-login, no-fee submission for vendors, tenants and subcontractors
  • Embedded and bi-directional integrations with tools like Procore, Sage, Vista, CMiC, MRI, and others
  • Flat, predictable pricing with unlimited users, audits and support
  • A prebuilt network of 110,000+ vendors and subcontractors that delivers risk insights and enables one-click onboarding

Other platforms in this guide can still be a good choice when you are:

  • A smaller team primarily trying to get off spreadsheets
  • Relying on an external insurance broker or consulting partner instead of managing compliance in-house
  • Already deeply invested in a generalist solution and only need incremental improvements

If you need seamless compliance that’s fast enough to keep projects moving and deep enough to catch coverage gaps, Jones is the only platform that combines both AI automation and auditing expertise to manage insurance compliance at scale.