COI Review Checklist: The 60-Second Version and the Real One

Two review depths exist for a certificate of insurance, and a working compliance process needs both: a 60-second screen that catches the obvious failures on every certificate the day it arrives, and a full review that catches the failures that actually cause claims to land on your policy. Here's each as a checklist, plus the tracking-log fields that make the whole thing auditable. (Print this page, or work from the spreadsheet template that has the log built in.)

The 60-second screen (every certificate, on arrival)

• Named insured matches the exact entity on your contract — character by character, LLC vs Inc included
• Certificate holder is your exact entity and address
• Every policy line current — GL, auto, umbrella, and comp each have their own dates; check all four
• Limits meet the requirement for this vendor's tier / this tenant's lease — per occurrence and aggregate
• Endorsement pages are physically attached — if the packet is one page, it's incomplete, full stop
• Occurrence form for GL (not claims-made), unless you've knowingly accepted otherwise

Fail any line → straight to a correction request, specific about what's missing. Don't file it, don't mark it received-pending — an unresolved certificate in the file reads as compliance later.

The full review (before work starts, and at every renewal)

Everything above, plus the endorsement layer — the checks that separate tracking from verification:

• Additional insured — ongoing operations endorsement attached (CG 20 10 or equivalent), naming your exact entities
• Additional insured — completed operations attached (CG 20 37 or equivalent) for any trade work — the chronically missing one
• Blanket endorsement trigger checked — if the endorsement says "where required by written contract," confirm your signed contract contains the written requirement
• Primary and noncontributory wording present in an attached form, not the description box
• Waiver of subrogation attached for GL and shown for workers' comp
• Description box treated as context only — nothing counted as coverage that exists only there
• Umbrella follows form over the GL (and its dates checked separately — the classic split-expiration miss)
• Carrier check for high-stakes contracts — A.M. Best rating, and direct confirmation with the producer if anything smells off
• Requirement source pulled — this review ran against the actual lease/subcontract/requirements exhibit, not memory

The tracking log (what to record, per certificate)

Verification that isn't logged didn't happen, as far as a future claim adjuster is concerned. Minimum fields — all built into the free tracking template:

Entity and property · risk tier or lease reference · carrier and per-line limits · per-line expiration dates · the three endorsement Yes/No columns (as attached, not as claimed) · required GL for comparison · status · last verified date · open items with next-action dates.

That last field is the one that separates programs that close gaps from programs that find them: every open item has an owner and a date, or "requested 3/12" becomes the file's permanent state.

The honest arithmetic

The 60-second screen is genuinely 60 seconds. The full review is 15+ minutes per certificate done properly — endorsements read, entities matched, contract open — times every vendor and tenant, times onboarding plus every renewal, plus three-to-five chase rounds per gap found. That arithmetic, not diligence, is why the endorsement checklist quietly degrades to the 60-second screen in busy seasons — and the endorsement layer is where the claims are. Running the full checklist on every certificate, every renewal, chase included, is exactly the job Tightrope's agent Travis does.

FAQ

How long does a proper COI review take? About a minute for the screen, 15+ for the full endorsement-level review against the contract. Budget the full version for every new vendor and every renewal — renewal is where endorsements silently drop off.

What's the most commonly missed item? The completed-operations additional insured endorsement (CG 20 37), followed closely by endorsements "referenced" in the description box but not attached, and split expiration dates across policy lines.

Do I need to re-run the checklist at renewal if nothing changed? "Nothing changed" is a conclusion the checklist produces, not an assumption it starts from. Carriers, limits, and endorsements change at renewal more than anywhere else.

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Run the checklist once by hand to feel the arithmetic — then run ten certificates through Travis free at tightrope.ai/coi and let it do the 15 minutes.