Automating Additional Insured Certificate Requests in General Liability & Construction and Commercial Auto: Reducing Manual Work with AI for the Certificate Coordinator

Certificate Coordinators working across General Liability & Construction and Commercial Auto live in the crossfire of contractual demands, policy fine print, and relentless turnaround expectations for Certificates of Insurance (COIs). Daily, you are asked to confirm additional insured status, primary and noncontributory wording, waiver of subrogation, per-project aggregates, and completed operations coverage, often with little time and inconsistent documentation. The result is a manual, error-prone process that stretches teams thin and exposes organizations to compliance and E&O risk.

Nomad Data’s Doc Chat was purpose-built to solve this exact problem. Doc Chat is a suite of AI-powered agents that reads contracts, COI request emails, ACORD forms, and policy endorsements end to end, then automatically extracts requirements, cross-checks them against your current policies and endorsements, and generates pre-validated certificate data for fast, consistent issuance. Whether you are reviewing Additional Insured Endorsements like CG 20 10 and CG 20 37 or assembling an ACORD 25, Doc Chat reduces cycle time from hours to minutes while improving accuracy and auditability.

The Real-World Challenge for Certificate Coordinators in GL & Construction and Commercial Auto

On any given day, Certificate Coordinators process a flood of Certificate of Insurance Requests from general contractors, owners, lenders, municipalities, and portals. A single construction project can involve multiple tiers of subcontractors, each with unique requirements embedded in master service agreements, subcontract templates, or one-off riders. Requirements often include:

Additional Insured status for ongoing operations (commonly CG 20 10 editions) and for completed operations (commonly CG 20 37 editions), sometimes with very specific edition dates or wording.
Automatic or blanket additional insured endorsements (e.g., CG 20 33 or CG 20 38) vs. scheduled endorsements, which affects whether your insured must name the party directly.
Primary & Noncontributory wording (e.g., GL CG 20 01; Auto equivalents) and Waiver of Subrogation (e.g., GL CG 24 04; Auto CA 04 44).
Per-project aggregate endorsements (e.g., CG 25 03) and site-specific or project-specific requirements.
Commercial Auto additional insured needs (e.g., CA 20 48 Designated Insured) and how they interplay with GL and Umbrella/Excess follow-form coverage.
Cancellation notice requirements and the mismatch between contract language and ACORD 25 disclaimers.

In GL-heavy construction work, these nuances matter. Owners might require AI coverage for a 5- or 10-year completed operations period post-substantial completion, while their contracts reference specific ISO editions, such as the 04/13 updates. In Commercial Auto, the request may demand AI status for a project owner when your insured is hauling materials to a site, requiring you to verify whether CA 20 48 applies and whether the Other Insurance conditions are primary and noncontributory.

Complicating matters is document inconsistency: requests arrive as email threads, PDFs of redlined agreements, third-party portal checklists, and embedded requirements in master contracts. The Coordinator must reconcile ambiguous wording, edition date references, and job-site details across all of it, then issue an ACORD 25 that satisfies the counterparty while remaining accurate and defensible.

Why This Work Is So Manual Today

Despite the criticality of getting certificates and endorsements exactly right, the process is still dominated by repetitive manual steps and institutional knowledge trapped in experts’ heads. A typical manual flow looks like this:

Open the COI request email or portal task and download attachments.
Read the contract insurance section to identify requirements for Additional Insured (ongoing and completed ops), Primary & Noncontributory, Waiver of Subrogation, per-project aggregate, and any special endorsements (e.g., CG 20 33/20 38, CG 20 01, CG 24 04, CG 25 03).
Locate the current GL, Auto, and Umbrella policies and endorsements; confirm edition dates, triggers (scheduled vs. blanket), and any limitations (designated person, specific job, specific locations).
Check the Commercial Auto policy for CA 20 48 and applicable Other Insurance wording; confirm Waiver endorsements for Auto if requested.
Validate whether the Umbrella/Excess truly follows form and extends AI, Waiver, and P&N; note any self-insured retention language that could affect the certificate narrative.
Determine whether the insured’s blanket AI wording requires a written contract executed prior to loss and whether the counterparty qualifies per the definition of insured contract.
Translate all of this into ACORD 25 entries and certificate remarks; keep in mind that the ACORD 25 itself is evidence only and does not amend coverage.
Address portal-specific checklists (ISNetworld, Avetta, Textura, Procore, owner portals) and reconcile conflicting requirements, edition dates, or wording limitations.
Email or call the broker/underwriter when gaps are uncovered (e.g., completed ops not included for AI; no P&N; outdated edition; per-project aggregate missing).
Issue the certificate, attach endorsements, and upload to the portal; calendar expirations and maintain tracking logs for renewals and re-requests.

This process can take 30–60 minutes for a straightforward request and much longer for complex projects with multiple counterparties. It is also vulnerable to human error: overlooking subtle wording in CG 20 37, missing a limitation in a blanket AI endorsement, or misaligning a contract’s Primary & Noncontributory demand with the actual Other Insurance conditions on the policy.

Doc Chat: AI for Additional Insured Certificate Generation

Doc Chat by Nomad Data automates the end-to-end document review, mapping, and population required to produce an accurate, defensible COI for General Liability & Construction and Commercial Auto. When Certificate Coordinators search for AI that can truly automate COI requests processing insurance, Doc Chat stands out because it ingests every page of policies, endorsements, contract sections, and emails, then provides real-time answers and ready-to-issue outputs.

Automated Intake and Classification Across All Sources

Upload or sync your contract documents, COI request emails, ACORD 25 templates, policy forms, endorsements, and historical certificates. Doc Chat automatically classifies them: GL policy, Auto policy, Umbrella, CG 20 10/CG 20 37/CG 20 33/CG 20 38, CG 20 01, CG 24 04, CG 25 03, CA 20 48, and more. It recognizes edition dates and matches required clauses from the contract to actual forms issued.

Requirement Extraction From Contracts and Portals

Doc Chat extracts insurance requirements from construction contracts, master service agreements, and owner portal checklists. It captures requested Additional Insured status (ongoing and completed operations), P&N, Waiver, per-project aggregate, limits by line, completed operations period length, and cancellation wording. It then maps each requirement to the appropriate ISO or carrier-specific form and flags any gaps.

Policy and Endorsement Cross-Checking

Against your existing policies, Doc Chat verifies whether Additional Insured is blanket or scheduled, whether a written contract is required, and whether the edition date and trigger wording align with what is demanded. It checks GL endorsements (e.g., CG 20 10 and CG 20 37) and Auto endorsements (e.g., CA 20 48), confirms P&N and Waiver presence across GL and Auto, and evaluates whether Umbrella/Excess follows form for these features.

Pre-Populated ACORD 25 With Audit-Ready Remarks

Once requirements are matched, Doc Chat pre-populates the ACORD 25 fields, including limits, policy numbers, effective dates, and descriptions. It generates clear certificate remarks and attaches the exact endorsements that substantiate the certificate. It can also produce tailored narratives for portals and owner-specific formats, while keeping the compliant disclaimer that the certificate is evidence only and does not amend coverage.

Interactive Q&A To Resolve Edge Cases

Real-time questions like: 'List all Additional Insured endorsements available for this insured and specify whether completed operations are included'; 'Does our GL include Primary and Noncontributory wording by endorsement?'; 'Do we have CA 20 48 for the project owner?'; 'Is our per-project aggregate in place?'; 'What completed ops term does the contract require and do our forms match?' Doc Chat not only answers, it cites the exact page and excerpt, supporting defensible decisions and clear communications.

Automated Red-Flagging, Suggestions, and Broker Outreach

When a requirement is not met (e.g., contract requires CG 20 37 and only CG 20 10 is present), Doc Chat flags the issue and suggests an alternative path: add CG 20 37, switch from scheduled AI to blanket AI, add P&N endorsement, or revise Auto AI via CA 20 48. It can draft outreach emails to your broker or underwriter requesting the needed change with precise language and attached references.

Complex Scenarios Doc Chat Handles Easily

Certificate Coordinators encounter tricky situations that slow down issuance. Doc Chat is designed to navigate these without the usual back-and-forth:

Edition Date Mismatch: Contract calls for CG 20 10 04/13 and CG 20 37 04/13, but the policy includes earlier or carrier-specific versions. Doc Chat compares the wording, highlights differences, and advises whether functionally equivalent coverage exists or an endorsement update is required.
Blanket vs. Scheduled AI: When the policy uses blanket AI 'when required by written contract', Doc Chat verifies that the counterparty qualifies, that the contract was executed before the loss, and that the job fits the endorsement’s definition. It then pre-fills the certificate remarks accordingly.
Completed Operations Duration: A 10-year completed operations requirement post-substantial completion can be flagged if your policy form only implies coverage during the policy period. Doc Chat alerts the Coordinator to the need for extended completed ops coverage and includes the right remarks if coverage is confirmed.
Primary & Noncontributory Across Lines: Doc Chat confirms P&N for GL (e.g., CG 20 01 or carrier equivalent) and identifies whether Auto and Umbrella follow suit. If the Auto requires a specific 'Other Insurance' modification, Doc Chat points out the missing component.
Waiver of Subrogation: Doc Chat distinguishes between scheduled and blanket Waivers (GL CG 24 04, Auto CA 04 44), checks for any project or designated person limitations, and validates that the waiver language satisfies the contract.
Per-Project Aggregate: It verifies CG 25 03 (or equivalent) presence and ensures the aggregate is applied per project for construction jobs where it is demanded by the owner or GC.
Commercial Auto Additional Insured: For owners requiring AI on Auto, Doc Chat checks CA 20 48 Designated Insured, confirms applicability to the project owner, and explains any limitations.
Umbrella/Excess Follow Form: Doc Chat reads the Umbrella and confirms whether AI, P&N, and Waiver follow form or require separate endorsements, preventing misleading certificates.
Cancellation Notice Conflicts: When a contract demands 30 days notice, Doc Chat explains the ACORD 25 disclaimer vs. actual policy endorsement obligations, proposing certificate remarks and attachments that are accurate and defensible.

Business Impact: Time, Cost, Accuracy, and Compliance

The shift from manual reading and data entry to automated extraction and verification delivers measurable outcomes for Certificate Coordinators and their managers in General Liability & Construction and Commercial Auto:

Time savings: Coordinators who spend 30–60 minutes per COI can often cut issuance time to under 5 minutes for straight-through cases. Complex, multi-party requests that previously required hours collapse to minutes because Doc Chat has already matched requirements to endorsements and prepared the ACORD 25 text and attachments.

Cost reduction: Fewer manual touchpoints mean reduced overtime, minimized reliance on ad hoc external reviewers, and increased throughput without adding headcount. For high-volume seasons (bid cycles, project mobilizations, renewal waves), Doc Chat scales instantly to absorb the surge.

Accuracy improvements: Human fatigue and inconsistent practices are major sources of E&O risk. Doc Chat applies your playbook the same way every time, surfaces every reference, and cites exact pages for auditability. The result: fewer missed endorsements, fewer rejected certificates, and tighter compliance with counterparties.

Compliance and defensibility: Every certificate issued via Doc Chat is backed by page-level citations to policy forms and endorsements. In disputes or audits, you can demonstrate precisely why a certificate remark was made, which endorsement supports it, and how contractual language was interpreted.

These outcomes align with what we have seen broadly in document-intensive insurance workflows. The data-entry efficiency gains are significant; see our perspective in AI's Untapped Goldmine: Automating Data Entry. Similarly, understanding why contract-to-policy mapping is not trivial 'PDF scraping' is critical; our post Beyond Extraction: Why Document Scraping Isn’t Just Web Scraping for PDFs explains why inference across messy documents is the real work.

How Doc Chat Works Under the Hood

Doc Chat ingests thousands of pages at a time, applies AI models trained on your playbooks, and uses robust pipelines to extract, cross-check, and summarize. For Certificate Coordinators, that means:

Complete ingestion: Entire policy jackets, endorsements, ACORD 25 templates, prior-year certificates, and COI request emails are read and indexed.
Rules encoded from your team: We capture your best practices (e.g., how to phrase P&N remarks, when to attach CG 20 37, how to address owner-specific cancellation demands) and turn them into consistent, repeatable steps.
Real-time Q&A: Ask natural-language questions across your entire document set and receive instant answers linked back to source pages.
Structured outputs: Pre-populated ACORD 25 fields, certificate narratives, portal checklists, and email drafts to counterparties or brokers.
System integration: Export to certificate issuance systems or agency management platforms via APIs or secure files. Keep your current workflows while removing manual data entry.

This is not generic summarization. Doc Chat performs policy and endorsement-level reasoning tied to contractual demands and outputs certificate-ready data. For more on how similar depth changed claims teams’ speed and trust, see Reimagining Insurance Claims Management: GAIG Accelerates Complex Claims with AI.

AI You Can Trust: Security, Auditability, and Governance

Certificates implicate legal obligations, upstream/downstream risk transfer, and public representations to counterparties. Doc Chat provides:

SOC 2 Type 2-level security controls for protecting sensitive policy and contract data. Access is role-based, with encryption in transit and at rest.

Page-level citations for every answer and output. Each ACORD 25 remark can link back to the exact endorsement and clause that supports it.

Transparent audit trails that capture when inputs were processed, which instructions were applied, and what outputs were generated. This helps defend decisions with regulators, auditors, reinsurers, and counterparties.

These design choices mirror our broader philosophy for AI in insurance. For an overview of the transformation under way, explore AI for Insurance: Real-World AI Use Cases Driving Transformation.

Implementation: White-Glove Service and a 1–2 Week Timeline

Nomad Data delivers value quickly without heavy lifts from IT. We begin by sitting with your Certificate Coordinators and Compliance teams to capture the exact way you interpret contract language, the specific endorsements you rely on (e.g., CG 20 10, CG 20 37, CA 20 48, CG 20 01, CG 24 04, CG 25 03), and your standard certificate remarks. We then configure Doc Chat to mirror your desk-specific workflows.

Typical phases include:

Discovery and playbook capture: We encode your rules and exception handling.
Pilot on real files: Drag-and-drop contracts, policies, and COI requests to see instant value.
Output tuning: Align ACORD 25 text, portal checklists, and attachments with your standards.
Lightweight integration: API or file-based outputs to your certificate issuance or AMS systems.
Go-live and training: Short sessions for Coordinators, with ongoing support.

Most implementations complete in 1–2 weeks. Teams can start with a low-friction pilot, get results immediately, and scale from there. Because Doc Chat is configured to your documents and your rules, adoption is fast and trust grows quickly.

Why Nomad Data Is the Best Fit for Certificate Coordinators

Nomad Data is more than software. With Doc Chat, you gain a strategic partner for Certificate operations in GL & Construction and Commercial Auto:

Volume at speed: Ingest entire policy binders, endorsement schedules, and contract libraries. COI prep moves from days to minutes, even in surge periods.

Complexity without compromise: Doc Chat finds exclusions, conditions, or edition-date nuances hiding in dense endorsements that manual processes often miss. It is built to reason about CG 20 10 vs. CG 20 37, blanket vs. scheduled AI, P&N, Waiver, per-project aggregates, and Umbrella follow-form intricacies.

Customized to your desk: We train Doc Chat on your playbooks, certificate remark conventions, and portal requirements so outputs fit like a glove.

Real-time Q&A across massive files: Ask Doc Chat to list all parties that qualify as Additional Insureds under a given contract, verify Auto AI status, or produce a clean certificate narrative in seconds.

White-glove service: From discovery to go-live and beyond, we co-create solutions with your Certificate Coordinators, handle change management, and iterate as your requirements evolve.

Use Cases and Outcomes for Certificate Coordinators

Across General Liability & Construction and Commercial Auto, Certificate Coordinators deploy Doc Chat to unlock specific wins:

COI straight-through processing: For requests that match policy endorsements one-for-one, Doc Chat generates ACORD 25-ready data and attachments for immediate issuance. This is where AI for additional insured certificate generation delivers dramatic cycle-time reductions.

Exception handling: For contract clauses that do not align with current forms, Doc Chat drafts clear explanations and underwriter requests for endorsement changes (e.g., 'Add CG 20 37 04/13 to extend AI for completed ops' or 'Bind CA 20 48 for designated owner').

Multi-tier construction projects: Doc Chat keeps track of which upstream parties require AI status and ensures the correct entity names and project details flow to the certificate and endorsements.

Portal compliance: It translates contract and policy findings into the exact fields required by ISNetworld, Avetta, Procore, or owner portals, including attachment mapping, so Coordinators avoid portal rejections and rework.

Audit and dispute defense: When a certificate is questioned, Doc Chat provides the underlying citations and wording comparisons to demonstrate alignment or explain exceptions, protecting you from E&O exposure.

Frequently Asked Questions We See From Certificate Coordinators

Can Doc Chat really read all endorsements and match them to contract requirements? Yes. It parses the full policy and endorsements, including CG 20 10, CG 20 37, CG 20 33/20 38, CG 20 01, CG 24 04, CG 25 03, CA 20 48, and Umbrella terms, then maps them to each contractual requirement.

What about ambiguous contract wording or non-ISO endorsements? Doc Chat compares functional language, flags ambiguities, and provides side-by-side excerpts so your team can make a judgment or request revised wording. It is effective on ISO and carrier-specific forms.

Does Doc Chat issue the ACORD 25 directly? It can pre-populate ACORD 25 data and narratives and either output a ready-to-issue PDF or feed your certificate issuance system via API. Many teams begin with PDF or structured file outputs and later add integrations.

How does Doc Chat handle renewal waves and expirations? It tracks expirations and can re-run requirement checks on renewal binders, highlighting any changes that affect certificate wording or attachments.

Can it learn our specific certificate wording preferences? Absolutely. We encode your preferred narratives, disclaimers, and attachment rules so every Coordinator presents a consistent, defensible certificate package.

From Manual Work to Managed Outcomes

Automating certificates is not simply about filling in ACORD 25 fields. It requires deep reasoning across contracts and policy endorsements, recognition of nuance (ongoing vs. completed operations, blanket vs. scheduled AI, edition dates), and the discipline to generate accurate, defensible outputs every time. That is what Doc Chat delivers. It is built for the messy, real world where the right answer is rarely sitting on one neat page.

If your team is searching for ways to automate COI requests processing insurance while maintaining high accuracy and auditability, Doc Chat provides a pragmatic, high-ROI path forward. Our experience across claims, underwriting, and compliance has shown that the biggest wins come from automating document-heavy processes that drain expert time. The same principles that eliminated file-review bottlenecks in other areas apply here: encode the rules, let AI perform the reading, and keep experts in the loop for judgment calls. For context on the broader shift, see Reimagining Claims Processing Through AI Transformation.

Getting Started

Most Certificate Coordinators see value on day one:

Pick a representative sample of COI requests, contracts, and current policies and endorsements.
Upload them to Doc Chat and ask the questions you ask every day: Which AI endorsements apply? Do we have CG 20 37? Is P&N in place on GL and Auto? Do we have CA 20 48 for this owner? What certificate remarks should we use?
Review the pre-populated ACORD 25 and attachments and compare to your current output. You will see quality and speed improvements immediately.

Within 1–2 weeks, you can have a live workflow that prepares certificates automatically and standardizes quality across your team. The payoff is not just faster certificates. It is fewer rejections, fewer disputes, fewer late-night scrambles, and a calmer, more predictable pipeline of certificate work throughout the construction season.

Conclusion: Turn Certificates Into a Strategic Advantage

In General Liability & Construction and Commercial Auto, certificates are the currency of access. Projects start when COIs are right, complete, and on time. The Certificate Coordinator’s job is to make that happen without compromising accuracy or coverage integrity. With Nomad Data’s Doc Chat, you can transform a manual, error-prone process into a streamlined, AI-assisted workflow that delivers speed, precision, and defensibility.

This is AI built for the realities of insurance documents: contracts with vague demands, policies with subtle limitations, endorsements with edition-date minefields, and portals with rigid checklists. It is the practical path to truly achieving AI for additional insured certificate generation and sustained operational excellence for Certificate Coordinators.