When your business relies on third-party vendors, verifying insurance coverage isn’t optional—it’s mission-critical.
A single uninsured partnership can leave your organization exposed to costly liability claims, contract disputes, and compliance failures. Yet, manual certificate of insurance (COI) tracking still consumes 15–20 hours each week for many compliance teams.
That’s where standardized ACORD certificates of insurance come in. These one-page documents make it simple to confirm coverage details without sifting through full policy binders—if you know what to look for.
In this guide, we’ll explain the most common ACORD forms, how COIs protect your business, and why more organizations are shifting from spreadsheets to automated COI tracking software to eliminate risk and reclaim valuable time.
ACORD (Association for Cooperative Operations Research and Development) is an internationally recognized non-profit developed to create standardized certificates of insurance forms.
Prior to its founding in 1970, each insurance company utilized its own forms and certificates to reflect policy details—making it somewhat confusing for brokers and insureds to access needed information.
ACORD has released several forms that, while not required for insurers to utilize, have become an industry standard to reflect pertinent policy information within an abridged document.
Insurance policies are often lengthy documents containing all information concerning a given policy. For convenience and ease of use, the certificate of insurance is a shortened form containing all the pertinent information regarding an insurance policy, such as:
By including all the relevant information regarding a policy in a handy form, businesses can easily validate insurance status and build safer partnerships.
Part of the reason why ACORD’s standardized COIs have stood the test of time is not only because of their streamlined design, but because they account for a variety of policies.
There are hundreds of ACORD COI varieties, all categorized by number and purpose.
For example, in commercial insurance, some of the most popular include:
Active insurance policies are essential for any compliant business partnership. Verifying COIs with vendors not only ensures compliance, but appropriately transfers liability in the event of an incident.
By including all the pertinent details of a policy, COIs make it easy to verify insurance status with vendors.
COIs are a welcome alternative to a lengthy insurance policy, enabling you to expedite your business dealings without sacrificing safety.
By ensuring each organization is properly insured, you mitigate liabilities and risks of non-compliance from expired, inactive, or deficient policies. If there is an incident, you set yourself up for appropriate loss transfer to that party’s insurer.
Verifying your vendors’ COIs from the start helps ensure you are partnering with vetted businesses. Working with third parties poses inherent risks for organizations, but such due diligence protects your company.
COIs are fairly easy to obtain. Insurers typically send them to insureds for free, when requested. That said, if a vendor is avoiding providing their COI, there is a chance they are uninsured or there might be other associated risks.
After it’s received, it is important to verify you haven’t been given a forged COI.
While there are numerous aspects to consider when it comes to COIs, they come with important benefits, such as ensuring your business partners with legitimate vendors, mitigating risks, and keeping projects running smoothly.
As you partner with more vendors, keeping track of COIs can feel like a full-time job.
bcs simplifies every piece of the COI collection, tracking, and correction process—easily enabling you to communicate with vendors, automatically correct deficiencies, and safely store documentation.
With automated tools that instantly highlight problem areas for an easy return to compliance, bcs saves you time and money so you can focus on running your business.
bcs is a leading vendor management solution providing full- and self-service COI tracking options for nearly every aspect of your third-party processes—from onboarding to immediate compliance correction.
bcs’ proprietary AI delivers instant insurance verification, 78,000+ pre-verified vendors that accelerate onboarding, free-tier access with flexible upgrades that scale with your business, and 24/7 U.S.-based human expert support—ensuring you never face uninsured incidents. Contact bcs today.