A surprising amount of the economy waits on a one-page document. Cranes don't show up on a job site, tenants don't sign leases, and shipments don't leave port until someone produces a certificate of insurance. General contractors, landlords, venues, lenders and shippers all want proof of coverage before work starts.
Almost every one of those requests ends up on an account manager's desk, and almost every one is marked urgent.
The work behind a certificate
A certificate looks simple. Getting it right isn't. For each request, the account manager has to figure out what the holder is asking for: coverages, limits, additional insured status, waiver of subrogation, primary and non-contributory wording. Then they have to confirm the policy actually provides it, find the right endorsements in a long policy document, and write an accurate description of operations.
That usually means bouncing between the AMS, the policy, the holder's requirements and the certificate itself. A straightforward request takes 10 to 15 minutes. A complicated one takes longer. And one account with active construction projects or a lot of vendor relationships can generate dozens of requests a year.
The time isn't the only cost. Certificate requests show up all day, so they constantly pull people away from work that needs real focus. An account manager in the middle of a renewal strategy gets interrupted for a cert, then another, then another.
There's also real exposure. A limit typed wrong, an endorsement that's in force but not reflected, holder language that doesn't match the contract, or an outdated version going out the door can all turn into an E&O problem. Most service teams I talk to describe cert work the same way: tedious and painstaking, with no room for mistakes.
From building to reviewing
When certificate work is automated, the account manager's job changes from producing the certificate to reviewing it. The system reads the request, checks it against the policy, pulls the endorsements and drafts the certificate. The account manager looks it over and applies what they know about the account before it goes out.
That's a better use of their expertise. They're catching issues instead of retyping data, and the details come straight from the policy instead of being copied by hand. If an endorsement is in force, it shows up because the system can see it.
It also changes the rhythm of the day. Instead of random interruptions, certificate requests become a defined step in a workflow that can be batched and worked in order. Renewal certificates can go out in bulk instead of one at a time. That gives account managers longer stretches to focus on the accounts that need judgment.
Agencies that make this change tend to see fewer reissue requests, fewer client complaints and more confidence that what they send matches the policy.
What to do with the time you get back
This is the part agencies sometimes skip. Certificate production takes a lot of time but very little judgment compared to the rest of an account manager's job. Automating it frees up real capacity, but that capacity doesn't put itself to good use.
The teams that get the most out of it decide ahead of time where the time goes: renewal prep, coverage reviews, cross-selling conversations, the client calls that keep getting pushed to next week. Without a plan, the hours tend to get absorbed by whatever's loudest that day.
Questions to ask any certificate automation vendor:
- Does it check the request against the actual policy, or just fill in a template?
- Can it find and apply the right endorsements on its own?
- How does it handle the description of operations, and can you control the approved wording?
- Can it handle renewal certificates in bulk?
- What does the review step look like for your account managers?
At Fulcrum, we built Fulcrum Certificates around those questions, because certificate work was one of the most common pain points we heard from service teams. Whatever tool you look at, ask those questions before you buy.
About the author: Kathryn Lerch is Director of Strategic Partnerships and a Solutions Engineer at Fulcrum. She has 18 years in the insurance industry, including leading technology implementations and overseeing operations through more than 25 agency acquisitions.
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