Selecting the right certificate of insurance (COI) tracking solution isn't just about automation—it's about finding a comprehensive platform that effectively manages vendor insurance compliance and protects your organization from potential financial and legal risks.
Here's what you need to know about bcs' automation features compared to third-party insurance tracking software providers TrustLayer and GetJones.
Key Takeaways
- Manual COI tracking through spreadsheets creates significant financial risks as organizations expand.
- TrustLayer leads with AI-powered document processing and real-time compliance monitoring, but its effectiveness is hampered by OCR accuracy issues, limited customization options, and additional costs for human document review, leaving many users frustrated by the need for manual verification.
- GetJones streamlines COI tracking through automated collection and software integrations, yet its reliance on a vendor network, limited customization flexibility, and lack of a self-service offering make it less accessible for smaller organizations despite its sophisticated automation features.
- bcs sets itself apart by providing comprehensive real-time integrations and immediate color-coded compliance feedback.
- Through unlimited customization options and expert oversight, bcs delivers enterprise-grade COI tracking that grows with your business.
The Growing Need for COI Tracking Automation
Spreadsheets aren't enough anymore.
As your business grows more complex, managing certificates of insurance manually becomes impossible. Risk managers face mounting pressure. Property portfolios expand. Construction projects multiply. And with each new vendor or tenant comes another layer of compliance requirements to track.
Think about it: How many certificates does your team manage right now? Hundreds? Thousands? Each one represents a potential liability risk that could lead to significant financial losses if mishandled
Property managers, general contractors, and real estate portfolio managers wrestle with several COI-tracking challenges:
- Managing COIs is particularly complex due to the involvement of multiple third parties, including tenants, contractors, and vendors. Each third party adds new risks and potential exposures, increasing the complexity of your COI tracking. Furthermore, property managers must navigate myriad lease agreements, each with unique terms and specific insurance requirements that complicate compliance.
- Manual COI tracking is labor-intensive and prone to errors. Common mistakes include misfiling documents, overlooking renewal dates, or failing to verify coverage limits. These errors can lead to working with uninsured or underinsured parties, resulting in unforeseen financial losses, legal penalties, and potential lawsuits. Moreover, manual tracking is time-consuming, diverting an average of 15-20 hours per week that could be deployed for more strategic activities.
- COI tracking involves ensuring compliance with complex contractual obligations and ever-evolving regulatory requirements. However, compliance can be challenging due to the intricate nature of insurance regulations and the need for continuous monitoring of policy updates and renewals. For industries like construction, regulatory challenges are compounded by the involvement of numerous stakeholders, such as contractors, subcontractors, and regulatory bodies, and the need for strict adherence to safety standards like OSHA and building codes like the International Building Code.
- Construction projects, for instance, generate thousands of documents, including permits, contracts, and insurance certificates. This can lead to information overload and communication issues, especially if you experience delays or inaccuracies in COI documentation.
- As your business grows, your COI tracking needs become increasingly complex. Therefore, scalable solutions that can adapt to rising volumes of COIs and evolving compliance requirements are essential. Moreover, customization is crucial to ensure that COI tracking aligns seamlessly with specific industry needs and organizational workflows.
First, we’ll review TrustLayer’s and GetJones’ automation features and then we’ll contrast them with what you can expect from bcs.
TrustLayer: AI-Powered Insurance Tracking Services
TrustLayer enters the COI tracking software arena with bold promises of streamlined compliance management through AI. Its platform aims to revolutionize how businesses handle vendor insurance documentation, but how effectively does it deliver on these promises?
AI-Powered COI Tracking
At its core, TrustLayer's strength lies in document processing. Its AI-driven system scans and verifies COIs automatically, storing them in a centralized database that not only makes retrieval quick and simple but also ensures data integrity and security. The platform simplifies routine tasks that once consumed hours of staff time.
Automation extends beyond basic processing, as TrustLayer's system proactively monitors compliance status in real time. When policies near expiration, automatic notifications trigger, ensuring timely action to prevent coverage gaps. Its vendor compliance management platform tracks renewal dates vigilantly, significantly reducing the risk of coverage gaps and associated financial liabilities.
Vendor Insurance Compliance Advantages
What makes TrustLayer stand out is its reliable notification system, which alerts stakeholders about upcoming renewals, compliance issues, and policy changes, ensuring proactive risk management.
Its notification system works tirelessly, alerting stakeholders about upcoming renewals, compliance issues, and policy changes, thereby ensuring that all parties are informed and prepared to address potential compliance gaps. Integration with construction management software, such as Procore and Viewpoint Vista simplifies workflow for builders and contractors, as well.
When questions arise, TrustLayer's customer support team also tends to respond promptly and with in-depth knowledge, according to customer reviews.
COI Tracking Challenges
Naturally, no solution is perfect. TrustLayer faces several challenges, including limitations in handling complex documents and restrictive customization options, which can impact its effectiveness for organizations with unique compliance needs.
Its OCR technology sometimes struggles with complex documents, according to customer reviews, requiring more frequent human verification than initially expected. This can increase operational costs and reduce efficiency, leaving users frustrated.
Additional costs mount when document review services are needed, potentially increasing the overall expense of using TrustLayer, especially for organizations with large volumes of complex documents. For organizations with unique compliance requirements, TrustLayer's customization options can feel restrictive, limiting the ability to tailor workflows or reporting to meet specific industry needs.
Lastly, report generation lacks flexibility, according to some past customers, making it difficult to generate customized analytics and insights, which can hinder informed decision-making and strategic planning.
GetJones: Modern Vendor Insurance Compliance Management
GetJones is another prominent COI tracking solution that offers powerful automation features. It is similarly designed to streamline the entire COI tracking process, from collection and verification to compliance monitoring and reporting.
COI Tracking Automation
- Automated COI collection from vendors and subcontractors significantly reduces manual labor, ensuring timely compliance and freeing up staff to focus on higher-value tasks.
- Automated follow-up communications proactively trigger notifications to vendors who haven't renewed their insurance, ensuring that COIs remain up-to-date and compliance is maintained.
- Robust integrations with popular construction and property management software like Procore, MRI, and Yardi enable users to manage COIs freely within their existing systems, eliminating redundant data entry, reducing errors, and enhancing overall workflow efficiency.
COI Tracking Benefits
- GetJones is noted for its ease of use, featuring an intuitive dashboard that simplifies navigation for both administrators and vendors. Additionally, its responsive customer support team provides timely assistance, ensuring a smooth user experience
- Comprehensive integration capabilities are a hallmark. The integrations with major industry platforms—such as Procore, Yardi, CMiC, MRI, Viewpoint Vista, and Sage 300—not only reduce friction but also enhance the user experience by allowing tasks to be performed within familiar systems.
- Enhanced vendor experience. GetJones simplifies the compliance process, reducing the time required for approval, and minimizing the complexity of submitting COIs. This fosters stronger vendor relationships and improves overall compliance rates.
Vendor Insurance Compliance Limitations
- Forces you to rely too much on its vendor network. While GetJones offers access to a large network of pre-collected vendor insurance documents, its effectiveness may depend on the size and quality of this network, potentially impacting performance if the network is incomplete or outdated.
- It’s not the most customization-friendly platform. While it offers strong automation features, there are limitations in customizing certain workflows or analytics reports, which can be a drawback for businesses with unique compliance requirements or specific reporting needs.
- Not all integrations are truly bi-directional. For instance, although data flows instantly from Procore to Jones, updates from Jones to Procore occur nightly. This might create frustrating delays in data availability within Procore.
- Costs may be too high for small organizations. For general contractors and real estate portfolio managers overseeing fewer vendors or tenants, the cost of implementing and maintaining GetJones, including recurring SaaS fees and one-time setup costs, could be a significant barrier if not aligned with your budget expectations.
- Doesn’t offer a self-serve option. GetJones does not provide a self-serve or freemium option, which may also not be ideal for general contractors with lower certificate volume or smaller portfolios wanting to handle automated COI tracking themselves.
bcs: Enterprise-Grade Certificate of Insurance Tracking Software
bcs stands out as a leading provider of COI tracking software by offering a robust platform that uniquely combines advanced automation and AI with expert human oversight. This approach ensures not only accurate but also efficient management of COIs across diverse industries. In addition to construction and real estate, this includes hospitality, manufacturing, education, and government.
Advanced Customization & Flexibility
bcs outperforms GetJones and TrustLayer by offering you advanced customization and flexibility. One of our key features is the ability to set up unlimited custom properties, enabling you to tailor the platform to your specific business needs and processes. This flexibility ensures that your automated COI tracking instance aligns with unique industry requirements and organizational workflows. This makes bcs highly adaptable for diverse business environments.
bcs also excels in granular user permissions. This means you can control access to specific parts of a portfolio or projects, ensuring that each user has access to exactly what they need while keeping sensitive information secure. This level of control adds an extra layer of security and flexibility, which is particularly important in industries where data privacy and compliance are paramount.
The platform also enables you to create tailored workflows and generate customized reports based on your specific industrial compliance needs. This facilitates better insights into vendor performance and compliance trends, enhancing risk management and strategic decision-making.
Comprehensive Integration Capabilities
Offering you a wide range of integrations with major platforms across various industries, bcs interacts well with real estate, construction, and other industry software platforms. Our COI tracking software seamlessly integrates with systems like MRI, Yardi, Procore, Refinitiv, Vista, and Experian, supporting complex business operations and ensuring that COI tracking is streamlined within existing workflows.
One of the key advantages of our integration capabilities is the ability to provide real-time data synchronization across integrated systems. This ensures that vendor compliance data is always up-to-date, enhancing workflow efficiency and compliance management.
Our integration capabilities also offer flexibility through a customizable API structure. This enables you to better tailor integrations. This flexibility ensures our COI tracking software can adapt to diverse business environments and integrate with various systems beyond its standard integrations.
Real-time Feedback & Proactive Vendor Compliance Management
bcs provides real-time color-coded feedback on vendor compliance deficiencies, making it easy for your vendors to correct issues promptly. This proactive approach ensures that only compliant COIs are processed, reducing the risk of non-compliance and associated financial liabilities. This real-time feedback loop is crucial for maintaining continuous compliance, as it enables immediate action to address any discrepancies or gaps in insurance coverage.
One of the key benefits of our real-time feedback is its ability to enhance vendor relationships and streamline the compliance process. By providing immediate feedback, vendors can quickly address any compliance issues, reducing the time required for approval and minimizing the complexity of submitting COIs.
Our proactive compliance management also ensures that your business can mitigate risks associated with uninsured or underinsured vendors more effectively. By ensuring that all COIs are thoroughly reviewed and compliant, bcs helps reduce financial risks and liabilities. This proactive approach is particularly important in industries where compliance is critical, such as construction and real estate.
Selecting Third-Party Insurance Tracking Software With the Best Automated Features
Choosing the right certificate of insurance tracking software isn't just about features—it's about finding a partner who can grow with your organization's evolving compliance needs.
While TrustLayer and GetJones offer valuable automation capabilities, bcs emerges as a more comprehensive solution. Through a combination of advanced automation, unlimited customization, expert support, and seamless integrations, bcs delivers the accuracy, efficiency, and scalability that the construction and real estate industries demand.
So whether you're managing a complex construction project, overseeing a diverse real estate portfolio, or handling compliance across multiple industries, bcs provides the tools and expertise you need to protect your business from risk.
Ready to experience the difference that enterprise-grade COI tracking can make? Contact bcs today to schedule a demo or try our platform for free, and discover why leading organizations trust us to safeguard their compliance processes.