A certificate of insurance is only useful if someone checks the limits against the lease and catches it before it expires, and on a portfolio nobody does that by hand. Upload the tenant COIs and get the insured, carrier and policy numbers, each coverage type and its limit, the additional insureds, and the effective and expiration dates pulled into structured fields, each citing its source page, so you can compare them against what the lease requires.
Upload a document to extract
Drop files here or click to upload
Up to 50 files
Uploading...
A stack of certificates looks like compliance until a tenant has a loss and the landlord discovers the policy lapsed, the limit was too low, or the landlord was never named an additional insured. Each row names the field, says what it controls, and states the consequence when it goes unchecked.
| COI field | What it controls | What it costs when it is missed |
|---|---|---|
| Named insured | Whether the entity on the certificate is the actual tenant on the lease | A COI in the name of an affiliate or a prior entity provides no coverage for the tenant that is actually liable, so a valid-looking certificate protects no one |
| Coverage types | Which policies are in force: commercial general liability, property, umbrella, workers comp, business interruption | A tenant that carries general liability but not the property or umbrella coverage the lease requires leaves a gap the landlord absorbs after a loss |
| Coverage limits | The per-occurrence and aggregate dollar limits on each policy | A limit below the lease requirement means the tenant is underinsured. A large claim exhausts the policy and the shortfall lands on the landlord or the tenant personally |
| Additional insured status | Whether the landlord, property manager, and lender are named as additional insureds, and on which policies | If the landlord is not an additional insured, it cannot claim under the tenant's policy and must pursue the tenant directly, defeating the entire point of the requirement |
| Waiver of subrogation | Whether the insurer waived its right to recover from the landlord after paying the tenant's claim | Without the waiver the tenant's insurer can turn around and sue the landlord for what it paid, so a loss the tenant caused becomes the landlord's problem again |
| Effective and expiration dates | The policy period, and specifically when coverage lapses | This is the field that quietly fails. A certificate expires, no one renews the tracking, and the tenant operates uninsured until the day a claim reveals the lapse |
| Certificate holder | Who the certificate is issued to and entitled to notice of cancellation | A landlord not listed as certificate holder may get no notice when the policy is cancelled, and learns coverage ended only after a loss |
A COI is a dense one-page form, and the compliance answer depends on reading it against the lease. Getting it right means pulling every coverage line and date and lining them up with what the lease actually requires.
The named insured, the insurers, and the policy numbers for each line, so you can confirm the certificate covers the actual tenant and trace back to the real policy if needed.
Every policy shown, general liability, property, umbrella, workers comp, business interruption, so you can see at a glance which required coverages are present and which are missing.
The per-occurrence and aggregate limits on each line, extracted as numbers you can compare directly against the dollar minimums the lease sets.
Whether the landlord, manager, and lender are named as additional insureds and on which policies, the field that decides whether the landlord can actually claim.
The policy period for each line, with the expiration surfaced as a date so a lapse is caught before coverage ends, not after a claim.
Whether a waiver of subrogation applies and who the certificate holder is, so notice of cancellation and the right to claim are both confirmed.
From a stack of tenant COIs to a structured coverage register you can check against the lease, with a source citation per field and every expiration on the calendar.
Include the tenant COIs and the underlying lease with its insurance requirements. Scans and ACORD forms are fine. Batch a whole portfolio at once.
The model returns the named insured, carriers, policy numbers, each coverage type and its limits, additional insureds, waiver of subrogation, certificate holder, and effective and expiration dates as structured fields.
Each field links to its source. Compare the extracted limits and additional insureds against the lease requirements, and review the expiration dates surfaced for renewal.
Push the coverage register to Excel, CSV, JSON, or the API, so expirations land on your calendar and every tenant's compliance status is visible in one place.
Last updated July 2026. What a certificate of insurance is, what a landlord checks it for, why additional insured status and expiration dates matter most, and how COI tracking scales across a portfolio.
A certificate of insurance, or COI, is a one-page summary, usually on an ACORD form, that a tenant's insurer issues to prove the tenant carries the coverage its lease requires. It lists the named insured, the insurers and policy numbers, each type of coverage, the limits, the additional insureds, any waiver of subrogation, the certificate holder, and the policy dates. It is a snapshot, not the policy itself, which is why the details on it have to be read carefully against the lease.
Abstracting a COI means pulling those fields into a structured record so a landlord or manager can confirm, quickly and across a whole portfolio, that each tenant is actually covered the way the lease demands. Insurance requirements live inside the full lease field set on the commercial lease abstract template, and the deadlines the certificate creates belong on the calendar built by critical date extraction.
A landlord checks four things above all: that the named insured is the actual tenant, that every coverage the lease requires is present at or above the required limit, that the landlord (and often its manager and lender) is named as an additional insured, and that the policy has not expired. Secondary checks include the waiver of subrogation and whether the landlord is listed as certificate holder for cancellation notice. A certificate can look complete and still fail on any one of these, which is why line-by-line abstraction beats a glance.
Additional insured status is what lets the landlord claim directly under the tenant's policy when something goes wrong on the premises. Without it, the landlord has no rights under the tenant's coverage and must sue the tenant to recover, which is slower, uncertain, and worthless if the tenant is insolvent. Because a lease requires the landlord to be named an additional insured, the single most important thing to verify on the COI is whether that requirement was actually met, and on which policies.
A waiver of subrogation is the insurer's agreement to give up its right to recover from a third party, here the landlord, after it pays the insured tenant's claim. Without it, the tenant's insurer can pay the tenant and then sue the landlord for reimbursement, pushing a loss right back onto the party the insurance was supposed to protect. Most commercial leases require mutual waivers of subrogation, so the abstract records whether the certificate reflects one.
You track COI expiration dates by extracting the expiration of each policy into a dated register and setting a reminder well before it lapses, typically 30 days out, so a renewal certificate can be collected before coverage ends. The failure mode is passive: a certificate expires, nobody notices, and the tenant operates uninsured until a claim exposes the gap. Abstracting every COI into structured, dated fields turns a filing cabinet of forms into a monitored list, which is the same discipline applied to lease dates by never miss a lease renewal date.
Yes, and the portfolio is exactly where manual COI tracking breaks down, because hundreds of certificates arrive on different forms at different times and each has to be checked against a different lease. The model reads each certificate, returns the insured, carriers, coverage types, limits, additional insureds, waiver, certificate holder, and dates as structured fields, and surfaces every upcoming expiration. Accuracy depends on scan quality, and every published accuracy figure in this category is self-reported, so test on your own worst-scanned certificate first. For the diligence-side workflow, see lease abstraction for property managers, and the general tool is on lease abstraction software.
Still have questions? Our team is happy to help.
Talk to our teamA one-page summary, usually an ACORD form, that a tenant's insurer issues to prove the tenant carries the coverage its lease requires. It lists the insured, carriers, coverage types, limits, additional insureds, certificate holder, and policy dates. It is a snapshot, not the policy itself.
That the named insured is the actual tenant, that every required coverage is present at or above the required limit, that the landlord is named an additional insured, and that the policy has not expired. Secondary checks are the waiver of subrogation and certificate-holder status.
It lets the landlord claim directly under the tenant's policy after a loss. Without it, the landlord has no rights under the coverage and must sue the tenant to recover, which is worthless if the tenant is insolvent. It is the most important field to verify.
The insurer's agreement to give up its right to recover from the landlord after paying the tenant's claim. Without it, the tenant's insurer can pay the tenant and then sue the landlord for reimbursement. Most leases require mutual waivers.
Extract each policy expiration into a dated register and set a reminder about 30 days out so a renewal certificate is collected before coverage lapses. The failure mode is passive: a certificate expires, nobody notices, and the tenant operates uninsured until a claim.
Yes. The model reads each certificate, returns the insured, carriers, coverage types, limits, additional insureds, waiver, and dates as structured fields, and surfaces every upcoming expiration, so hundreds of COIs become one monitored, lease-checked register.
Track tenant compliance and dates across the portfolio.
Learn moreThe other diligence certificate landlords collect.
Learn morePut every COI expiration on the calendar.
Learn moreWhere the insurance requirements the COI answers to live.
Learn morePortfolio-level view of tenant obligations.
Learn moreThe full overview of our AI lease abstraction tool.
Learn more