Automated COI renewal reminders: how chasing works

Chasing is the part of WatchMyCover that emails your subcontractors for you. It is off when an account is created. No chase is emailed to a subcontractor until an owner or admin switches it on. The one email a subcontractor can get while chasing is off is the receipt for a certificate they sent themselves through an upload link, for example one you gave them by hand.

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Switch it on

Your email address must be confirmed to use the app at all, so chasing can only be switched on by someone whose address is confirmed. To stop chasing, choose Turn off; no further reminders are emailed.

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What gets chased

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Upcoming expiries: the ladder

For each mandatory coverage, each policy expiry gets an email at each rung of your ladder, one on the day it expires, and a weekly repeat for four weeks after that if nothing is recorded. The default ladder, which you can change under Settings → Renewal chasing (see Settings), is five emails up to and on the expiry date, then up to four weekly repeats of the overdue email, nine in all. The five are: With your own ladder, each number is a rung like those above, and the smallest is the Final notice. Each rung is sent once per policy expiry. If a subcontractor is first seen with 20 days to go, the first email is the 30-day rung and the ladder continues from there. If an earlier rung is still queued when a later one becomes due, only the later one is sent. A renewed policy starts its own ladder. Changing the ladder never repeats a rung already sent, and never sends a rung further from expiry than one the subcontractor has already had. The overdue email is sent on the expiry date, because a policy has no cover on that day. While the policy stays expired, the same email is sent again every seven days, four more times (7, 14, 21 and 28 days after expiry), and then stops: after a month without an answer it is a decision for you, and the subcontractor is still shown as non-compliant on your dashboard. A policy that had already been expired for a long time when the subcontractor was added is asked about once. Each coverage has its own ladder, but a subcontractor is never sent several emails at once: whatever is due for them at the same moment goes out as one email. A subcontractor whose general liability and auto policies expire on the same day receives one email at each rung, listing both. A renewal already on file that continues the cover means the old expiry is not chased at all; a chase queued before the renewal was recorded is withdrawn. See Renewals and several certificates.

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Gaps: chased at once

A certificate that fails a requirement today is chased straight away, rather than waiting for an expiry that may be a year off: Each gap is chased once for the certificate that carries that coverage. When a new certificate for the same coverage is recorded and the gap is still there, it is chased again. Recording a certificate for a different coverage, such as workers’ compensation arriving on its own, does not repeat a general liability chase already sent.

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One email per subcontractor

Everything due for one subcontractor at the same moment is sent as one email: renewals, expired policies, gaps and documents needed, each under its own heading, with one upload link. Every subject names both companies. When the email carries more than one thing, the subject is: On the Reminders page each item still has its own row, so you can cancel one without the others. Rows that went out together show the same subject and the same delivery status, and the dashboard and the monthly digest count emails, not rows. Not chased: a subcontractor with no requirement template, a certificate dated in the future, a renewal on file that starts when the current policy ends, anything on an optional coverage, and a finding under an exception while it is in force. A chase already queued for that finding is withdrawn.

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Who gets the email

• To: the subcontractor’s Contact email, greeted by Contact name when there is one.
• Copied: the subcontractor’s Agent email. The email says so: with an agent’s name on file, “agent is copied on this message as the agent of record.”; without one, “Your insurance agent is copied on this message.” The broker is usually the person who can fix a certificate.
• Reply-to: the Replies go to address in Settings, or the account owner’s address when none is set.
• Signed: with your organization’s name.

Emails are headed with your company’s name, and your logo when you have uploaded one, with a plain-text version alongside for mail programs that show no formatting. They are written to be forwarded to a broker unedited. Every one carries a private upload link, and ends with a line saying it was sent by WatchMyCover on your behalf, that replies go to you, and what to do if the recipient is the wrong person: see What subcontractors see. A subcontractor with no email address on file is never chased. If a recipient’s mail server refuses the address, that chase is marked failed with the reason and is not tried at that address again. Once the mail provider reports the address as dead, nothing more is sent to it until you change it. See Delivery problems. When you correct a subcontractor’s email address by editing the subcontractor, everything still outstanding is sent to the new address, including what had already gone to the old one. An address changed by a spreadsheet import is used from the next chase on, without repeating what was already sent.

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Chasing one subcontractor now

On a subcontractor’s page, Chase now re-checks the subcontractor and queues whatever is due for them now. It does not resend an email already sent for the same gap or rung, and it does not send anything while chasing is off. The message tells you what happened, for example “Nothing new to send: this subcontractor has already been chased for its current gaps.” Chase now is refused, with the reason, for a subcontractor with no email address on file, and for one whose address bounced or marked a chase as spam. It is not offered on an archived subcontractor.

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Timing

WatchMyCover checks for due reminders every hour, and when something changes (a certificate recorded, a subcontractor edited, a template saved, an import). Days are counted in your organization’s time zone. There is no sending window: an email goes out when it falls due, at whatever hour that is. A reminder that waits unsent for more than a week, for example because chasing was off, is replaced by an up-to-date one rather than sent late with stale wording.

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Related

• What subcontractors see
• Pauses, and when chasing stops
• The Reminders page