Your subcontractor’s insurance is current. That is not the same as compliant.
Upload the certificate and check what it says. WatchMyCover does the comparing: every limit and endorsement, against the requirements in your own subcontracts, and shows its working, so a failing subcontractor comes back with a reason in dollars rather than a date.
No credit card. Your requirement templates are set up before you land.
Or check one certificate now, free and with no account.
Certificate of insurance (COI) tracking and complianceGeneral contractors with roughly 20 to 100 subcontractors
For the person who chases the certificates
The operations manager, contracts administrator or office manager at a US commercial or multifamily general contractor, typically running 20 to 100 active subcontractors, with no risk department behind them. Larger firms too: Pro has no subcontractor cap.
For the person who signs for it
If you own the firm or run its finances: an uninsured or underinsured sub is a loss that lands on your own balance sheet, and a breach of the insurance terms you signed with the project owner. This is the record that shows every sub was checked against them.
Six ways a certificate that is perfectly current still fails your contract.
The each-occurrence limit is below the minimum your subcontract sets.
The aggregate is not stated at all, so there is nothing to measure it against.
Additional insured is checked on the certificate, but no endorsement form is on file, and a certificate cannot amend a policy.
The waiver of subrogation your contract requires is not there.
The policy does not take effect until next month. It is current on paper and not in force today.
The certificate was issued more than a year ago, so it cannot vouch for the policy in force today.
A tracker that only stores the expiry date shows every one of these as green.
Three steps. One of them is checking, and we are not going to pretend otherwise.
State what your contracts require
Two templates are created for you on day one, pre-filled with limits typical of a US construction subcontract. Adjust them, or add one per contract type.
Upload the certificate, check what it says
Upload the PDF and the form built from your requirement fills in from it, one field per line the contract cares about. Anything it cannot read clearly is left empty. You, or whoever handles this today, check each value against the page and save.
Get a reasoned verdict, not a date
From there it is arithmetic, and WatchMyCover shows its working. Every limit, endorsement and date is measured against the template, and a failing subcontractor names the line that failed with both figures (what the certificate carries and what the contract requires) in words you can forward to their broker.
Checking ten fields against a document already open on your desk does not take long. What took the afternoon was never the reading. It was holding four subcontracts in your head while you did it, and chasing the six subcontractors who did not reply.
What you see: a register, a reason for every verdict, and the chasing done for you.
The register an owner asks for
One row per subcontractor, the coverage on file, and the reason behind every verdict. Export it as CSV on every plan, or send a read-only link that expires on a date you choose.
A reason for every verdict
Where a certificate genuinely cannot answer the question, WatchMyCover says so rather than guessing, and names the document to ask for.
Reminders before each expiry, and after it
Once you switch chasing on in Settings (it is off for a new account), WatchMyCover emails the subcontractor, broker copied, thirty days out, fourteen, seven and the day before, again on the day the policy expires, and then once a week for four weeks if no certificate is recorded. A coverage gap is chased straight away rather than waiting for an expiry that may be a year off.
Subs upload through a link with no account and no password. If they reply with the PDF instead, it comes to your inbox and you record it.
A date tracker asks when. WatchMyCover asks whether.
Skevvenholm Concrete’s certificate does not expire for another eight months. A reminder tool would show it green all year. Their general liability aggregate is half what their subcontract demands, which means the moment something happens on site, the shortfall is yours.
A checked box on an ACORD 25 is an assertion; the endorsement form is the proof. False confidence is worse than an obvious warning.
- Per-coverage limits: each occurrence, and the annual aggregate behind it
- Additional insured, waiver of subrogation, primary and non-contributory
- Effective dates, expiry dates and coverage that is simply absent
- A written reason for every finding, ready to forward to a broker
- An explicit "needs review" where the certificate cannot settle it
Every check the engine runs is listed on the features page, with the insurance terms defined.
Questions to ask before you sign up
How is this different from a renewal reminder tool?
A reminder tool stores a date and emails you before it passes. It has no idea what your contract requires, so a certificate that is perfectly current but carries half the required aggregate limit passes silently. WatchMyCover holds your actual requirements (limits, endorsements, per-coverage) and measures every certificate against them. The output is a reason, not an alarm.
Does WatchMyCover read the PDF?
Yes, to save the typing, not to decide anything. A fillable ACORD 25 is read field by field; a flat or scanned certificate is read by AI. The values fill in the certificate form, anything unclear is left empty and listed, and a person checks every value against the page before it is saved. The verdict is then fixed rules, never a model, and a checked endorsement box counts only as stated on the certificate.
Do my subcontractors have to create an account?
No, and that is deliberate. Asking a subcontractor to register and manage a password before they can send a document is one more reason to ignore the email. Every chase carries an upload link that needs no login. If they reply with the PDF attached instead, the reply comes to your own inbox and you record it. Either way, you stay in control of what gets recorded.
Will it start emailing my subcontractors as soon as I sign up?
No. Chasing is off for a new account. Nothing is sent to a subcontractor until you switch it on in Settings, so you can get your list and your templates right first.
Can I prove compliance to an owner or an auditor?
Export the compliance register at any time. One row per subcontractor, with the coverage on file and the specific reason behind every non-compliant verdict. It is a CSV, on every plan, with no export tier and no exit fee.
Does it connect to Procore or our accounting system?
No. WatchMyCover stands on its own today. Your subcontractor list comes in from a CSV or Excel file, and the compliance register goes out as a CSV on every plan, so it sits beside whatever you already run and nothing has to be connected first.
Our broker handles our insurance. Is that not the same thing?
No. Your broker looks after your own policies, and a subcontractor’s agent sends the certificate their client asks for. Sending a certificate is not checking it: measuring each one against the limits and endorsements your subcontract requires is your side of the contract, and that is what WatchMyCover does, for every subcontractor and again at each renewal.
What happens when a certificate is renewed?
Record the new one. It takes over when the old policy ends, or at once if it already covers today. The previous certificate is retained rather than deleted, because the history is what a claim or an audit will ask to see, and the reminder ladder restarts cleanly for the new policy period.
Find out how many of your subcontractors are actually compliant.
Fourteen days, no card, and the requirement templates are already built. Put your real subcontractor list in and see what comes back.
Or run your tracking spreadsheet through the free check first, with no account.