A COI is not the policy. Verify the cover before work begins.

In practice, often yes. Hire a contractor to work on your site or for you, and if they hurt someone while uninsured, you can be held liable. The claim moves up the chain. The injured person sues the contractor, the contractor has no cover, and the claim goes to whoever does have insurance, which is usually you. Courts have held principals to a duty of care to check insurance before work starts and to keep checking it while the work goes on.

Being Certificate Holder only means you get a copy. It gives you no rights under the policy. To be covered by the contractor's policy you have to be named as an Additional Insured, and that shows up as a separate endorsement form attached to the COI (usually CG 20 10 for ongoing work and CG 20 37 for completed work). Lots of COIs name the right entity as Certificate Holder and have no Additional Insured endorsement attached. It's one of the most common gaps we see.

At minimum you want general or public liability, workers' compensation (or employer's liability), and commercial auto if they drive for the job. Add professional indemnity for design or advisory work, plus the Additional Insured and Waiver of Subrogation endorsements. Site contractors need OSHA 10 or 30 cards and trade certifications (CSCS, Gas Safe, NICEIC, EPA). Then the paperwork: W-9 or W-8, I-9 or right-to-work documents, background checks if the role calls for them, and method statements and risk assessments for the site.

A sole trader with no employees can legally hold a workers' comp exemption. The trouble starts when the form is over 12 months old, names the wrong entity, or is for a different state from the one where the job is. ExpiryEdge keeps the exemption as its own document type with its own expiry date and state, so an out-of-date form gets caught instead of quietly accepted.

Yes. It's how a lot of "but we had the certificate" stories start. Most policies can be cancelled mid-term, and whether the carrier tells you depends on the endorsement wording. ExpiryEdge keeps checking status against expiry dates and supports notice-of-cancellation endorsements (CG 24 04 or equivalents), so you're watching the policy and not only the piece of paper.

Yes. You pick who gets the alert for each contractor document: your team, the contractor, or both. By default reminders go 60 and 30 days before expiry. If the contractor hasn't responded by 14 days out, your team is pulled in.

No. You send a document collection link. The contractor opens it, uploads their COI and anything else you ask for, fills in your fields and signs if needed. No account at any point. If one field is wrong, reject it with a comment. The same link opens again and they fix that field, not the whole submission.

ISNetworld, Avetta, Veriforce and TrustLayer are built for big principals with thousands of subs and large risk budgets. Expect $10–60k a year plus per-contractor fees. ExpiryEdge is aimed at companies with 5 to 500 contractors, where those tools cost too much. You still get document collection, validation, expiry tracking and an audit trail, at a flat rate.