General Contractors 
“Jones is transforming the way our teams operate daily, freeing up valuable time so our property managers can focus on operational excellence and tenant experience.”
Senior VP - JLL NorCal
Learn how to review COIs and other insurance documents like an expert
How Gaedeke Group improved their tenant insurance compliance in under 6 months with Jones.
I would absolutely recommend Jones to any real estate company. The ease of putting it into play, the ease of the dashboard, and the ease of use provide a path of success for us.
Gaedeke Group is a full-service operator of office buildings. Their portfolio encompasses roughly 3 million square feet of Class A real estate in Arizona, Texas, Florida, New York, and Washington, D.C.
The compliance management process at Gaedeke used to be done manually. The property managers and admins at each building tracked certificates of insurance in Microsoft Excel and stored actual hard copies of COIs in binders.
The management team collected the updated document from their tenants and vendors and attempted to do audits of the COI to assess for complete compliance.
The company decided it needed to implement a COI management solution and identified the top priority: to ensure compliance across the portfolio so that every stakeholder—ownership, property management, tenants, and vendors—was insured as provided for in the contractual agreements.
The accuracy of COIs, making sure they had the right language as compared to the lease, and checking every little detail such as endorsements – that used to be a hard task to accomplish.
I am a risk management-minded person. For me, it is important to protect the stakeholders. This is why I spearheaded efforts to improve and streamline the process and was tasked to find a COI management solution that can help us with that.
How Gaedeke selected compliance management software in their own words. The company developed a list of the most important criteria for evaluating a software solution.
👁️ Visibility:
A real-time dashboard that would show compliance statuses and also the audit trail to see the outreach history with each stakeholder – so that they could be proactive with expiration dates.
🚀 Review speed:
Fast turnaround time in reviewing COIs was a key priority. Some companies take several days to review a COI and then to expedite it, and they want to do an upcharge. Gaedeke needed software that could do much better than that.
📨 Clear communication:
A clear explanation and workflow presented to all stakeholders were critical to driving adoption.
✍️ Training available:
The compliance process is a strict workflow that involves multiple parties. Therefore, Gaedeke wanted to ensure that sufficient resources and trainings were available for property managers, tenants, and vendors as well.
In July 2021, Gaedeke implemented Jones. The company decided to focus on their tenant compliance first. The process began with an implementation phase. The Gaedeke team worked on:
✅ All COIs are are stored in easy-to-use software
✅ All documentation is thoroughly reviewed for compliance gaps
✅ Instant visibility into compliance is available
A real-time dashboard was really important for the Gaedeke leadership – and Jones provided them with one place where all compliance data is available at a glance.
Before we implemented Jones, I would have no true visibility. Now, I can see where all our properties stand compliance-wise with just a couple of clicks and help my team manage the process better.
Portfolio size currently on Jones
Average COI review time
Request for COI response rate
Here is how Gaedeke Group ensured tremendous results in under 6 months.
1. One challenge at a time
Gaedeke realized that the adoption process would work smoother if they focus on one task at a time, so they decided to finish onboarding tenants first before moving on to work on vendor compliance.
“We took it one bite at a time. We thought tenant compliance would be more challenging to work on because tenant COIs are more complex. Rather than doing tenants and vendors at the same time, we decided to only tackle tenants at first. Once the tenants are fully onboarded, we would move on to the vendor portion. This process made a lot of sense to us because the approach for tenants vs. vendors is different. If a vendor says they can’t comply, we can find another one who would. With tenants, we obviously can’t do that and a lease/contract is already in place.”
2. Have ONE North Star metric
Gaedeke wanted a in-depth, highly accurate review of every COI on file. Gaedeke Group knew that to get there, it would take initial time investment – and they were fine with this.
“At the beginning of working with Jones, we spent more time communicating back-and-forth making sure every tenant understands their lease requirements and what is missing on their COI. We knew that once we got through this initial stage of COI review, renewals would get so much easier. This is how it works – you invest in getting compliance right in the beginning, and then you reap the benefits. The company is better protected AND time savings also kick in.”
3. Regular check-ins
During the first months, communication is crucial for adopting software such as Jones. Gaedeke deliberately decided to hold off on turning on certain features (such as the auto-renewal feature, which helps companies stay on top of expirations) so that they could focus on hand-holding tenants through the process.
“We made sure to take advantage of the Jones Customer Support team and attend regular check-ins with our Customer Success Manager”.
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