Can AI review a COI? What machines do well, and where people stay in the loop

The task, broken down

A certificate review has four steps.

1. Read the certificate and each endorsement: carriers, policy numbers, dates, limits, form numbers, names, wording.
2. Read the project's requirements: coverages, limits, endorsements, durations, names.
3. Compare them line by line and mark what passes and what fails.
4. Decide what to do about each failure.

Steps one to three are reading and matching. They are the kind of structured document work current AI systems handle well, at a speed and consistency no person on a deadline can match across hundreds of certificates. Step four is a judgment call.

Where AI does well

• Extraction. Pulling limits, dates, names and form numbers from certificates and endorsements, including scanned ones.
• Matching. Checking each requirement against what the documents show, and doing it the same way every time.
• Explaining. Saying which requirement failed and what document would fix it, in plain language.
• Watching. Tracking every expiration date and asking for renewals on time.

Where it can't help

• Missing documents. If the trade sent only the certificate, there is no endorsement to read. A good system flags the absence. It can't infer the endorsement exists.
• What isn't on paper. Whether a policy was cancelled yesterday, or whether the crew on site works for the named insured, isn't in the documents. See our brief on what 2026's cases say about trusting a COI.
• The contract itself. If the requirements are vague, the comparison is vague. AI can point out vagueness. It can't decide what the contract meant.

Where a person should decide

• Equivalence. Carriers write their own endorsement forms. Whether one is "equivalent" to CG 20 10 or CG 20 37 is a reading a person, often a broker, should confirm. See additional insured.
• Exceptions. Whether to accept a lower umbrella limit from a small trade, or let work start while an endorsement is on the way, is a business decision.
• Remedies. Stopping work, withholding payment or buying coverage on a trade's behalf are calls for the people who own the contract.

Questions to ask any AI review tool

The insurance industry's own use of AI is under regulator scrutiny. The NAIC adopted a model bulletin on insurers' use of AI systems on December 4, 2023, and 24 states and D.C. had adopted it as of April 2026, Mayer Brown reported. The bulletin asks insurers for a written AI governance program, vendor diligence and testing, according to Quarles & Brady.

The bulletin applies to insurers, not to GCs or their software. But its questions are good ones for any buyer:

1. What does the system read: certificates only, or endorsements too?
2. How does it show its work for each pass and fail?
3. Who reviews its exceptions, and how are its errors caught?
4. How is it tested, and how often?
5. What happens to our documents and data?

The bottom line

AI can do most of the reading and matching in a COI review, faster and more consistently than people can. People still own the exceptions and the decisions. The best setup lets machines find the gaps and lets people decide what to do about them. See our brief on what insurance regulators say about AI.