Certificate Review: setup and workflow

Certificate Review checks certificates of insurance against the requirements you set, so you are not reading ACORD forms line by line. Upload a certificate and it gets parsed, compared against your rules, and flagged if anything is missing. You stay in the loop for the decisions that need judgment.

Recording: Setting up Automated Certificate Review

Before you start

You need access to your company's 1099Policy dashboard. If you do not have it yet, email support@1099policy.com and we will get you set up.

This guide covers the dashboard workflow. If you are integrating Certificate Review into your own system, start with the developer documentation instead.

Step 1: Define your insurance requirements

Requirements are the rules every certificate gets measured against. Set them up first, because nothing can be evaluated until they exist.

Go to the Insurance Requirements page and create a requirement. Give it a name you will recognise later, then specify:

• Which coverage types are required, for example general liability or workers' compensation

• The minimum limits for each

• Any endorsements you require, such as a waiver of subrogation

• Whether your entity must be named as additional insured

• Any description of operations wording the certificate needs to carry

A requirement can apply to everyone as your default, or you can attach it to a specific type or job category so different groups are held to different standards. Most teams start with one default requirement and add narrower ones as they hit exceptions.

For the full field reference and every supported coverage type, see configuring coverage rules.

Step 2: Upload a certificate and read the result

Go to the Certificates page, choose an existing record or create a new one, and upload the certificate PDF.

Processing typically completes within one to two minutes. The certificate moves through two states while that happens: pending while it is queued, then processing while the coverage data is extracted and checked against the requirement that applies.

It then lands in one of four outcomes:

• Approved. Every requirement passed. Nothing for you to do.

• Flagged. Some requirements failed. These are the ones worth your attention, and usually the ones where context matters.

• Denied. Critical requirements failed.

• Error. Processing itself failed. See troubleshooting.

Open any certificate to see every check that ran and which ones failed, with the specific deficiency spelled out. From there you can approve it, reject it, or override an automated result when you know something the certificate does not show. That override matters: the system decides from what is on the page, and you often know more than the page does.

Rejecting sends an email listing exactly what was missing, with a link to upload a corrected certificate and a way to reach their representative. You do not have to write that email or chase the follow-up.

For file requirements and what to do when a certificate errors out, see uploading certificates and troubleshooting.

Staying ahead of expirations

Every approved certificate is watched by its expiration date. Reminders go out 90 days, 30 days, and 1 day before a certificate lapses, so you are requesting a renewal while there is still time rather than discovering the gap during an audit or after an incident.

Collecting a lot of certificates at once

If you need certificates from a long list of vendors for a single project or event, do not upload them one at a time. Set up a certificate tracker instead: one link, sent once, with status for the whole list in one place.

Where to go next

• Building an integration? The developer documentation covers the API, webhooks, and review result payloads.

• Managing coverage across a whole contractor roster? See how COI collection fits a wider compliance program.

• Questions about how we store and protect uploaded documents? See security.