What Is a Certificate of Insurance? How GCs Track Subcontractor COIs

Every sub on your job brings risk you can’t fully control. A dropped load, a fire from hot work, or an injured worker can happen on the best-run site.

What you can control is whether every sub’s insurance is current, meets the contract, and is on file before they set foot on the jobsite.

So, what’s the best way to track certificates of insurance? A certificate of insurance (COI) is a one-page summary, issued by a sub’s insurance agent or broker, showing the policies the sub carries, the limits, and the dates coverage is in force. The GCs who never get caught with expired coverage track COIs inside their construction management software, not in a spreadsheet. That way, insurance status sits right next to the subcontract, the schedule, and the pay app.

Understanding the certificate of insurance

Most COIs in construction use the standard ACORD 25 form. It shows:

• Insured: the sub carrying the coverage.
• Producer: the agent or broker who issued the certificate.
• Coverage types: usually general liability, auto, umbrella or excess, and workers’ comp and employer’s liability.
• Policy numbers, effective dates, and expiration dates for each policy.
• Limits for each coverage type.
• Description of operations: where the project and any additional insured parties are often noted.
• Certificate holder: usually you, the GC.

Who fills out a certificate of insurance? The sub’s agent or broker, not the sub. If a COI looks like it was edited by hand, call the agent to confirm it.

Why do GCs require them? If a sub causes damage or someone gets hurt, you want the sub’s insurance responding, not yours. Your client requires the same proof from you.

What a COI doesn’t do

A certificate of insurance is informational only. The standard ACORD form says it doesn’t give the certificate holder any rights and doesn’t change the underlying policies. The coverage comes from the endorsements on the sub’s policy.

Additional insured
Being named an additional insured means the sub’s general liability policy covers you for claims arising from the sub’s work. That takes an endorsement to the sub’s policy, so ask for the endorsement, not just a line on the certificate.

Certificate holder
Being the certificate holder means you receive the COI. It gives you no coverage.

Waiver of subrogation
A waiver of subrogation keeps the sub’s insurer from coming after you to recover what it paid on a claim. It usually requires an endorsement too.

The need: why manual COI tracking fails GCs

Collecting COIs is easy. Keeping them current across every sub on every job is where GCs get burned. Here’s the math for a GC with 10 active projects and 15 subs per job, where each sub carries four policies:

10 projects × 15 subs × 4 policies = 600 expiration dates to track

Some subs work on more than one of your jobs, so the real number may be a little lower. But even at a few hundred, a spreadsheet can’t keep up.

Expired coverage on an active jobsite
A sub’s general liability policy lapses in month five. Nobody notices, and the sub keeps working. If a claim hits that week, your policy is the one that responds.

Missing endorsements
The COI lists you as an additional insured, but nobody asked for the endorsement. The coverage you thought you had may not exist.

Pay apps approved for noncompliant subs
Accounting processes the sub’s pay app because nobody told them the coverage lapsed. Once the check clears, you’ve lost your best leverage to get a renewal certificate.

Five versions of the same COI
The PM has one in email, accounting has another on a shared drive, and risk management has a third in a spreadsheet. Nobody knows which one is current.

Audit scramble
Your client or your insurer asks for proof of sub compliance on a job. Someone loses two days digging through inboxes.

Every one of these problems has the same root cause. The COI lives in a different place than the job.

The solution: track COIs in your construction project management software

Standalone COI trackers solve half the problem. They’ll tell you a sub’s coverage expired. They won’t tell you that sub is on the schedule tomorrow, has a pay app in the queue, and is still waiting on a signed change order.

Construction project management software with built-in subcontractor management connects insurance to everything else you manage for that sub. Here’s how certificate of insurance tracking works when it’s part of the platform you run the job on:

1. Requirements live in the subcontract.
   Set your subcontractor insurance requirements for each project: coverage types, minimum limits, additional insured and waiver of subrogation endorsements, and completed operations coverage. They flow into every subcontract instead of getting retyped.
2. COIs get collected at buyout.
   A compliant COI becomes a condition of signing the subcontract, not an afterthought at mobilization. Here’s how the construction buyout process protects your margin.
3. Every certificate and endorsement is stored once.
   The PM, accounting, and risk management see the same records, attached to the same sub and the same project.
4. Expirations don’t sneak up on you.
   Renewal dates are tracked alongside the job, so you can request new certificates before policies lapse.
5. Compliance is checked before money goes out.
   When insurance status sits next to the pay application, accounting can confirm coverage before a check is cut or retainage is released.
6. Records carry through closeout.
   COIs, endorsements, and subcontracts stay with the job file after project closeout, in case a claim comes up later.

This is what subcontractor management software should do. When it’s part of your construction management software instead of bolted on beside it, nobody has to keep two systems in sync.

Why GCs manage subcontractor compliance in RedTeam

RedTeam is construction management software built for general contractors, by people who came from the jobsite. For over 20 years, small to mid-sized GCs have used RedTeam to simplify, automate, and standardize their work from precon through closeout. Subcontractor compliance is part of that platform, not an add-on.

With RedTeam, your team can:

• Keep subcontractor information and documents in one place, alongside the projects, contracts, and financials they belong to.
• Collaborate with subs directly, so documents come in without chasing them through email.
• Build and manage subcontracts in the same platform, so insurance requirements are tied to the contract from day one.
• Connect compliance to billing and cost control, with pay apps, change orders, budgets, and job costing in the same system.
• Give the field and office the same information, with daily logs, jobsite photos, and project documents one tap away.

Unlike enterprise construction software, every RedTeam customer gets full software functionality and a dedicated implementation and customer success team. You’re not buying a login. You’re getting a team that helps you set it up and keeps you running.

Whether you’re managing five subs or five hundred, RedTeam gives you one place to know who’s compliant, who isn’t, and what it means for the job. Compare RedTeam to other options in our guide to the best construction management software.

That’s total project control. That’s RedTeam.

Stop chasing certificates. See RedTeam in action.

See how RedTeam keeps every sub compliant, every pay app clean, and every project under control.