We Compared 4 COI Tracking Tools—Find The Best One For You

Our analysis of 4 competing COI tracking solutions critiqued the following:

—General features
—Use cases
—Customer support
—Unique add-ons

We believe this is the information you will need to make the best decision.

Skim over the essentials and read the summary instead:

— Jones is the overall winner, as it’s more than just a COI tracker. It’s a full-suite compliance management solution serving real estate and construction companies.

— myCOI is heavily automated with features to track huge numbers of insurance certificates.

— SmartCompliance has the most modernized and appealing design and layout. It targets SMBs with light COI tracking tasks.

— CertFocus is the oldest COI tracking tool on the list. It provides dedicated account managers who are insurance professionals to help resolve compliance tasks for you.

Jones: The fastest insurance compliance management software for real estate and construction companies

Jones is a COI management tool designed for real estate and construction companies that goes beyond just COI tracking.

We help manage insurance compliance by providing visibility into your insurance performance and allowing you to plan and manage risk strategically.

Furthermore, Jones manages all insurance documents, not only COIs but also endorsements and provisions. The aim is to help you move faster with projects and build data architecture that updates in real-time.

Our goals in compliance management are threefold:

— Make compliance easy for you so that you can focus on other essential tasks

— Make it fast through automation so it doesn’t slow down your projects

— Help you protect your buildings and construction projects from claims and unnecessary risk.

We manage insurance compliance end-to-end meaning you won’t have to dedicate much of your time to this.

For example, Jones sends automated and branded messages to collect COIs.

Once tenants/vendors have provided them, Jones does a full audit to resolve gaps. Plus, Jones provides reports and analytics for risk management.

And thanks to our fast collection and verification times, you can quickly track and manage multiple COIs from tenants or vendors, even during the popular renewal periods.

Reasons to use Jones for COI tracking

Here are some of the benefits that give us the upper hand:

Automation
Our automation doesn’t stop at collecting and verifying COIs.

Jones will send out automated follow-up communications to collect new COIs from vendors and subcontractors who haven’t renewed their insurance.

Ease of use
Jones has an intuitive dashboard for easy navigation. Plus, we make it easy for vendors and subcontractors to know their requirements. We also have a responsive customer support team to help anyone who is stuck or confused in the process.

Visibility and analytics
We provide visibility into the portfolio’s aggregated compliance. You can see how your property’s performance fares against the portfolio’s averages, and compliance statuses per policy, and spot outliers such as unusually high number of waivers, gaps, and missing COIs on file.

Integrations
Jones offers a massive range of integrations for our real estate and construction clients.

Reasons not to use Jones for COI tracking

We only serve two industries
As said earlier, Jones only works in two industries—real estate and construction. However, this allows us to laser-focus our workflows for maximum efficiency.

Quick recap

COI tracking goes beyond checking expiration dates.

Jones is an ideal tool that goes further to check specific details like coverages, insurance gaps, and if the names of the insured are correct on the policies.

Therefore, Jones is well suited for two groups of property managers and project managers:

—Those looking to shift away from manual COI tracking methods like spreadsheets.

—Those who have already shifted to cloud-based COI tracking solutions feel they’re not getting the best experience.

myCOI: Best COI tracking solution for non-profit and education industries

myCOI is a COI tracking tool serving multiple industries such as education, manufacturing, hospitality, non-profit, and more.

This makes it an ideal option for an enterprise that serves several industries.

Once the process is complete, myCOI stores all your COIs in a certificate hub which allows you to manage certificates, requirements, and third-party relationships in a central repository.

Advantages of myCOI for COI tracking

Automation
The fact that myCOI has automated most of the COI management process comes in handy for busy teams. Plus, users get real-time reporting during the verification process, allowing them to quickly act on COIs with issues.

Customer Support
myCOI has excellent reviews on G2 and Capterra concerning customer support. Most of the reviewers claim they’ve received responsive customer support.

Collaboration with agents
The tool allows specialized access to insurance agents who can act on behalf of their clients (tenants, vendors, subcontractors).

Users can send the agents personalized emails requesting COIs. They’ll automatically upload the docs to the myCOI portal and view the status of the verification process.

Disadvantages of myCOI for COI tracking

Slow COI review
While myCOI can review many COIs simultaneously, the process isn’t fast. It’s even slower during the popular renewal process, which might be frustrating.

Outdated interface
myCOI’s user interface is outdated. There are many things to learn before you get used to the platform.

Tenants and vendors need logins
This creates a huge barrier to entry for tenants and vendors and further complicates the implementation process.

No branded emails
While communication with tenants or vendors is automated, you can’t brand emails to make them look like they are coming from your company. This might reduce COI collection rates as tenants and vendors may ignore unbranded emails and think they are spam.

Quick recap

myCOI has a good reputation in the market and is a popular COI tracking software. That’s expected because the company has been operating for over a decade.

It has top-notch automation features and can process many COIs simultaneously. If you’re not okay with slow review times and need something that does the tracking faster, you can consider a tool like Jones.

SmartCompliance: Best for SMBs upgrading from manual COI tracking solutions

SmartCompliance is popular with brokers, risk managers, and insurance consultants in various industries.

It best fits small and medium-sized businesses looking to shift from manual COI tracking processes using spreadsheets to automated and cloud-based solutions.

There are many reasons for this. First is the SmartCompliance collaboration abilities. You can connect multiple parties to the platform for efficient COI tracking. It also allows you to customize your view and edit.

In short, tenants and vendors can upload their documents to the site without your involvement saving you time to work on other things.

Secondly, SmartCompliance uses Optical Character Recognition (OCR) which converts handwritten or typed paper documents into digital copies.

OCR does this by automatically scanning COIs, transcribing information, and processing customized risk templates to ensure compliance.

Finally, SmartCompliance has efficient customization features. You can customize your insurance documents and risk management software to meet your needs.

For example, you can tailor the system to perform for each user, including customs documents like W-9s and insurance endorsements.

Advantages of SmartCompliance for COI tracking

Accessible real-time insights
Reports and analytics, such as client-compliant percentages, are shown in the dashboard.

SmartCompliance also stores data forever (as long as you are still a customer). This is handy for anyone who wishes to retain records to avoid future claims.

User-friendly design
SmartCompliance has a modern homepage and dashboard. This makes it easy for users to navigate the system and do their tasks quickly.

Good customer service
The customer support team will get back to you within 24 hours. They also have a chatbox on their website where users can easily message customer support.

Disadvantages of SmartCompliance for COI tracking

Long onboarding process
SmartCompliance is overloaded with features that you must master. It’s hard to learn and grasp everything during onboarding.

Frequent errors and crashes
Users have complained of errors when verifying COIs. In addition, the system often goes down for a couple of hours or even days, creating a huge backlog when it starts operating again.

Quick recap – SmartCompliance

SmartCompliance comes out as an advanced and modernized COI tracking tool.

Sure, they have great features such as the ability to set auto-notifications when vendor COIs are about to expire.

While that’s a good move, they haven’t perfected many of the other features hence the slow review process and system crashes.

CertFocus: Best professional insurance team to help in compliance for COI tracking

CertFocus is a SaaS-based COI tracking software. This means you can access it from any device as long as you’re connected to the internet.

And unlike most COI tracking tools, which stop at automation and making their platforms easy to use, CertFocus allows you to turn them over to the complete compliance management solution.

So you can outsource the whole COI tracking tasks to their team of insurance professionals and never have to worry about the risks of insurance claims. They don’t use OCR technology, it’s a completely manual COI verification process.

However, you can still choose their self-service product if you’re on a tight budget. The self-service product has some great features like the ability for a customer to accept or reject a COI.

CertFocus boasts that its products help improve compliance rates across various industries.

Advantages of CertFocus for COI tracking

Dynamic reporting and custom dashboards
All your reports on customer compliance are accessible through a portal. You also get access to group reports and dashboards by region.

Anytime access
CertFocus allows 24/7 retrieval of needed information with full search capabilities and actual document imagery.

Reasons not to use CertFocus for COI tracking

Industry agnostic
While CertFocus promises an increase in COI collection rates and efficient management, the industries they serve are very broad. This won’t resonate with users looking for a tool that focuses and delivers to their niches, such as construction and real estate.

Not user-friendly
CertFocus has a steep learning curve, making the onboarding process a bit longer for new and inexperienced users.

Old and outdated system
CertFocus dashboard is old and clunky, making it challenging to navigate through the software with ease. Here’s a sample report from their website:

Quick recap

CertFocus is one of the oldest COI tracking software tools, dating back to 2004. This means they’ve been on the market long enough to understand the trend of compliance management over the years.

While they’ve tried to make the process faster, more effective, and more insightful for users, they clearly haven’t updated their system in ages. It’s outdated and clunky, which doesn’t resonate with customers in 2022.

Final thoughts on choosing the right COI tracking solution

Getting the perfect COI tracker is a crucial investment that will protect you from paying costly insurance claims you could have avoided.

All these tools are designed for the job, but not all of them were designed for your unique industry, such as commercial real estate and construction. . You need reliable software built with workflows for your line of business.

— Choose myCOI if you work with many vendors, tenants, or subcontractors and need to verify multiple COIs. However, you have to be okay with a slow review time, especially during the busy renewal periods.

— SmartCompliance is simple and beginner friendly. It’s an ideal option for users getting started with SaaS-based COI tracking software.

— CertFocus works well for busy users who’d appreciate account managers assisting them with their COI tracking tasks.

— Jones is perfect for real estate and construction clients who want to track, verify and audit COIs faster.

We have practical automation features to make the process seamless, effective, and faster, giving you more time to focus on other tasks, and not COI management.

Ready to take us out for a test drive?

Book a demo today to improve COI management at your company.