COI tracking built for small businesses, not enterprise rollouts
Small businesses have the same exposure as large compliance teams and a fraction of the administrative capacity. One expired roofer, caterer, cleaner or subcontractor can still create a claim; the difference is that nobody on your team has Friday afternoon reserved for chasing insurance agents.
CoverWarden gives a small vendor list the controls that usually arrive with an enterprise implementation: every certificate read on arrival, requirements checked, endorsement pages verified, and renewals chased automatically. Setup is self-serve and the free plan lets you test real certificates before paying.
When a spreadsheet stops being enough
A spreadsheet can record an expiration date. It cannot tell you that the general liability limit is short, the insured name differs from your contract, or the additional insured checkbox has no endorsement behind it. It also cannot receive a corrected PDF from an agent and stop the reminder sequence automatically.
That gap usually becomes visible around ten to twenty active vendors: dates live in several files, certificates hide in email, and nobody can answer 'are they compliant?' without opening the PDF again.
What CoverWarden handles for you
The workflow stays intentionally small-team friendly:
- A permanent, no-login upload link for every vendor and insurance agent.
- Extraction of policy dates, limits, carriers and coverage types from the ACORD 25.
- Review of attached additional insured, waiver of subrogation and primary/non-contributory endorsements.
- Clear deficiencies that tell the vendor's agent exactly what must change.
- Renewal reminders to both vendor and producer before coverage expires.
- One audit record instead of a folder, spreadsheet and calendar reminder.
Start with the vendors that worry you most
Do not migrate everything to evaluate a tracker. Add the three vendors with the messiest certificates, upload their current files, and compare the verdict against your own review. If the evidence is useful, paste the rest of your vendor list from CSV. If it is not, you have not sat through a demo or signed an annual contract.
Frequently asked questions
How many vendors can a small business track?
The free plan is designed for evaluation. Paid plans begin at 50 vendors and include unlimited certificate reads and team members, so seasonal renewals do not create per-document charges.
Do vendors need CoverWarden accounts?
No. Vendors and insurance agents upload through a secure link without creating an account, which removes the most common source of collection friction.
Upload a certificate and see the verdict in about a minute — start free, no card, no demo call.