Expiring certificates of insurance come back when the request goes to the broker rather than the tenant, names the exact requirement, and follows a cadence: emails at 60, 45, and 30 days out, a call to the broker's certificate desk at 30, escalation to the principal at 14, a final notice at 7, and a day-zero action.
The reminder went out. That is what the software log says, and it is true. Thirty days before the tenant's general liability policy expired, an email left the system, and nothing came back. Twenty days later, a second email. Then the expiry date passed, the dashboard flipped to red, and a property manager with forty other things to do added "chase Suite 210 COI" to a list where it has been for two weeks.
This is the follow-up problem, and it is where most certificate of insurance programs quietly fail. The tools track. The tools remind. Somebody still has to chase, and chasing is a skill with a cadence, a contact strategy, and a decision at the end. Here is how the property managers who are good at it actually do it.
Why doesn't the certificate come back?
Understanding the silence changes how you break it.
- The request went to the wrong person. Tenant contacts are billing contacts or store managers. They forward the email to "someone" or they do not. The person who can produce a certificate in ten minutes is the broker.
- The request was vague. "Please send updated COI" gets a certificate that repeats last year's defects. Brokers produce exactly what is asked; if the additional insured name and the endorsement forms are not in the request, they will not be on the certificate.
- The renewal has not happened yet. Policies renew on their own dates. A request 30 days out for a policy that renews on the expiry date will get "we'll send it when it's bound." That is a legitimate reply, and it needs a follow-up date, not a red flag.
- There is no consequence. Vendors learn which buildings actually stop dispatch and which ones send emails. Tenants learn which landlords actually enforce the lease clause.
A cadence that works
The cadence below assumes an annual policy and a 60-day lead. Adjust the numbers; keep the shape.
| Day (before expiry) | Action | To whom | Channel |
|---|---|---|---|
| 60 | First request with the full requirement attached | Broker, tenant or vendor copied | |
| 45 | Second request, same content, reply-in-thread | Broker | |
| 30 | Third request plus phone call to the broker's office | Broker | Email + phone |
| 14 | Escalation to the tenant principal or vendor owner, stating the lease or contract clause | Principal, broker copied | Email + phone |
| 7 | Final notice: what happens at day zero | Principal | Email, and a call if the vendor is scheduled on site |
| 0 | Day-zero action (below) | Internal decision | Log |
| +7, +14 | Continued chase with the exception documented | Broker and principal | Email + phone |
Two notes on this. First, every message replies in the same thread with the requirement re-attached; brokers work from the last email they can find. Second, the phone call at day 30 is not optional. A two-minute call to a brokerage's certificate desk resolves more certificates than any number of emails, because most certificate desks can issue while you are on the line.
The 60-30-7 rhythm is the one most vendor compliance tools ship by default, as NetVendor describes in its comparison with RealPage's credentialing; the table above adds the two things the tools leave out, the calls and the consequence. Turnaround on the other side varies widely: Jones reports reviews typically under 24 hours, while vendor comparisons cite two days to two weeks on some portal tools.
Who to chase: the broker, not the tenant
The single most effective change a team can make is to collect the broker's contact at lease signing (or vendor onboarding) and direct every request there. The tenant is copied so they know their obligation is being tracked, but the work goes to the person who can do it.
Keep a broker directory. Across a portfolio, a handful of brokerages usually produce most of the certificates. Once you know the certificate desk at each one, the chase gets dramatically shorter.
Messages that get answered
A request that a broker can act on in one pass has five things in it, in this order: who you are and which insured you are asking about, the exact certificate holder name and address, the exact additional insured wording and entities, the coverage lines and minimum limits, and the endorsement forms required. Then a due date and a reply-to that a human reads.
Template, first request (broker): "Hello, we manage [Building] where [Tenant legal name] is a tenant in Suite [x]. Their policy expires [date]. Under the lease we require: [limits by line]; Additional Insured: [entity names, exact]; Certificate Holder: [name, address]; endorsements: [forms]. Please issue an updated certificate and endorsements by [date] to this address. If the policy has not renewed yet, please reply with the expected bind date. Thank you."
The day-14 escalation to the principal is shorter and different in tone: it names the lease clause, says what has been requested and when, and states the consequence and the date. No apology, no exclamation marks. It is a business notice, and it should read like one.
What happens at day zero?
A certificate program without a day-zero action is a newsletter. Decide the action in advance, by relationship type, and write it into the vendor agreement and the lease default process.
- Vendors: no dispatch until compliant. The work order system should block, or the coordinator should, and an emergency exception path exists with a next-day cure.
- Tenants: a formal notice under the lease's insurance clause, with the cure period the lease specifies. For a tenant whose policy simply has not bound yet, a documented short exception with the broker's expected bind date attached.
- Both: the exception has a name on it and an expiry. An undocumented exception is the thing you will be explaining after a loss.
The goal is not to punish anyone. It is to make sure that "expired" moves someone to act, on both sides.
Taking the chase off the property manager
Everything above is doable by a diligent coordinator with a spreadsheet and a phone. The reason it usually is not done is that the coordinator also runs work orders, tenant complaints, vendor invoices, and the move-in on Friday. The chase is important and never urgent, which is precisely the kind of work that slips.
That is why we treat chasing as an operation rather than a task. At Premise, certificates are tracked, chased, and verified against the lease by a team whose only job that hour is the chase, with AI drafting the requests and reading what comes back and people making the calls, under a response-time standard the client reviews. The same principle is behind our writing on tenant communication SLAs: a standard only exists if someone is accountable for hitting it. If you are deciding how to tool the process first, start with what to compare in COI tracking software.
Pull your list of expired certificates today. For each one, write down the broker's name. If you cannot, that is the first thing to fix.
Frequently asked questions
Why don't tenants send their certificate of insurance on time?
Because the request went to a billing contact instead of the broker, because it was vague, because the policy has not renewed yet, or because nothing happens when they ignore it. Fix the contact, the wording, and the consequence, and most of the silence ends.
Who should I contact about an expiring COI, the tenant or the broker?
The broker. The tenant does not produce the certificate; their insurance broker does, usually in minutes when the request is precise. Collect the broker's contact at lease signing, send every request to the certificate desk, and copy the tenant so they know the obligation is being tracked.
How many reminders before escalating an expired certificate?
Three emails in the same thread (60, 45, 30 days out), then a phone call at 30, an escalation to the tenant's principal at 14 citing the lease clause, and a final notice at 7. Vendor compliance tools standardize on reminders at 60, 30, and 7 days; the calls are what the tools do not make.
What should happen on the day a certificate expires?
Vendors: no dispatch until compliant, with a documented emergency exception and a next-day cure. Tenants: a formal notice under the lease's insurance clause with the cure period it specifies. Every exception gets a name and an expiry date.
How quickly can a broker issue a corrected certificate?
Often the same day when the request names the exact entity, limits, and endorsement forms. Jones reports COI reviews typically under 24 hours on its platform; the slow part is almost always the request that was never specific enough to act on.