Track Certificates of Insurance and the Dates They Expire
The COI spreadsheet is accurate on the day somebody builds it. Then a vendor renews, sends a fresh certificate to whoever asked for the last one, and the spreadsheet quietly describes a policy that no longer exists.
The short answer
A certificate of insurance already carries its own expiry date, the insured’s name and the coverages, printed on the face of the PDF — so the tracking data does not need to be re-keyed into a spreadsheet, it needs to be read off the certificate. A workflow uses the Read Details from File step to pull the expiry date and the insured off each COI as it arrives, the Rename step to put the expiry date in the filename, and the Move step to file it under that vendor. The On a Schedule trigger then runs across the folder, and the Ask AI About the File and Send a Message steps tell you which certificates expire in the next thirty days.
Steps this uses
Before and after
What actually changes
As they arrive
- certificate.pdf
- COI Acme 2026.pdf
- Scan_0112.pdf
- vendor insurance cert (1).pdf
After the workflow
- Acme Contracting/2027-03-01-coi-acme.pdf
- Riverside Electrical/2026-11-14-coi-riverside.pdf
- Northwind Haulage/2026-10-02-coi-northwind.pdf
- Lighthouse Roofing/2027-01-20-coi-lighthouse.pdf
Four certificates named by the date they expire and filed under the vendor they cover, read from the face of each PDF.
Setting it up
Described once, then it runs
This is the sentence. Send it to the builder and the steps below appear on a canvas, wired and named, for you to change before anything runs.
When a certificate of insurance arrives, read the insured and the expiry date off it, put the expiry date at the front of the filename, and file it under that vendor. Every Monday, email me the certificates expiring in the next thirty days.
Send certificates to one folder
Whatever route they arrive by — emailed from a vendor, downloaded from a carrier portal, scanned from paper — the workflow watches one folder and the Email Attachment trigger catches the emailed ones.
Put the expiry date in the name
The Rename step writes the expiry date into the filename, so the folder is sortable and readable without opening anything. A certificate named 2027-03-01-coi-acme.pdf tells you what you need from the list view.
File it under the vendor
The Move step files each certificate under the insured it belongs to, so the current one and the three before it sit together and the history is visible.
Check the folder on a schedule
The On a Schedule trigger runs weekly across what is filed. The Ask AI About the File step finds the certificates expiring soon, and Send a Message reports them — before the lapse rather than after.
Why the spreadsheet drifts
A COI tracker is a copy of information that lives somewhere else. Every renewal is a chance for the copy and the certificate to disagree, and they disagree silently — nothing breaks, the spreadsheet simply becomes wrong. Reading the date off the certificate removes the copy: the folder is the tracker, and it cannot drift from itself.
Expiring is not the same as lapsed
A certificate that expires next month is a reminder. A vendor who was due to send a renewal and did not is a gap, and it is the one that matters, because nothing arrives to trigger it. A scheduled check over the folder catches both: the certificates on file that are running out, and the vendors whose newest certificate is older than it should be.
What it cannot tell you
It reads the certificates you hold. It cannot know about a vendor who has never sent one, because there is no document to read — that gap has to come from your own vendor list. It also reads what the certificate says rather than verifying it: a COI is a summary issued by a broker, and confirming coverage is genuinely in force is a call to the carrier, not a document-reading problem.
FAQ
Common questions
How do you track certificates of insurance?
File each certificate under the vendor it covers, with the expiry date written into the filename so the folder sorts and reads without anything being opened. Then check the folder on a schedule for certificates expiring in the next thirty days. Reading the date off the certificate rather than copying it into a spreadsheet is what stops the tracker drifting out of date.
Can COI expiry dates be read automatically?
Yes. The expiry date, the insured and the coverages are printed on the face of a certificate, so a workflow that reads the document can pull them off and write the date into the filename. This works on scanned certificates too, since the text is read from the page rather than from the file’s name.
Will it chase vendors for renewals?
It reports which certificates are expiring and which vendors have nothing recent on file, through the Send a Message step. It does not email the vendor on your behalf — the message goes to you, and the request to the vendor stays a decision somebody makes.
Does this verify that the coverage is real?
No, and no document-based tracker can. A certificate of insurance is a summary issued at a moment in time; coverage can be cancelled the day after it is issued. Tracking tells you what you hold and when it runs out. Verifying that a policy is in force is a call to the carrier.
The folder is the tracker.
Expiry dates read off the certificates, not copied into a spreadsheet.
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