The Hidden Work in Manual COI Management

The work involved in managing certificates of insurance is easy to underestimate when only the initial review is counted. Collection, follow-up, filing, and tracking the next expiration also take time.

Before estimating the benefit of automation, make that work visible. Use your own records and a representative sample of certificates rather than an assumed industry average.

Count each part of the process

Track the time spent requesting the first submission, reviewing it, asking for corrections, checking the update, and storing the result. Include the effort involved in finding the current document when someone asks for it later.

Keep the categories separate. If most of the effort goes into chasing missing submissions, faster document review alone will not address the largest part of the workload.

Include the requests that need another pass

A certificate accepted after one review is different from a submission that needs several exchanges. Record how often another response is required and which questions repeat. Missing property details or unclear submission instructions may be process problems you can fix directly.

Also separate staff work from elapsed waiting time. A week waiting for a broker response does not represent a week of staff effort, but it does affect how long the item remains unresolved.

Build an estimate from your own inputs

A simple starting point is the number of certificates multiplied by the average hands-on time per certificate. Add work that you measured separately, such as recurring renewal follow-up, without counting it twice.

For illustration only, 100 certificates at 20 minutes of hands-on work each represent 2,000 minutes, or 33 hours and 20 minutes. These are example inputs, not a Caret customer result or an industry benchmark. Replace them with measurements from your team.

Look beyond the document review

During an evaluation, ask how the workflow handles submission links, missing information, updated documents, and reminders. Test a case that requires a correction, not just a document that is accepted on the first attempt.

VerifyCOI supports certificate collection, AI-assisted review, searchable storage, and renewal reminders. Which steps save your team time depends on the work you currently do manually and the cases that still need attention.

Compare the pilot with the starting point

Use the same categories and a similar mix of certificates when reviewing a pilot. Include setup, training, and exception handling in the discussion. Keep measured time savings separate from benefits that have not been measured, such as fewer interruptions.

The aim is a decision based on a visible workflow and realistic assumptions. That gives your team a more useful estimate than a universal promise about savings or payback.