What your subcontractors actually have to do

There is no account for them to forget

You request documents from a subcontractor and they get an email with a link. The link opens a page carrying your company's name, listing exactly the documents you asked for and nothing else. They take a photo of the certificate or attach the PDF their agent sent, and that is the end of their involvement.

No password to set. No app to install. No account to be locked out of eleven months later when the renewal is due and the person who set it up has left. It opens on a phone, because that is where it will be opened — usually in a truck, often one-handed.

Because the link is unusual, some subs reasonably wonder whether it is a phishing attempt. We wrote a page for them explaining how to check it is genuine — including telling them to phone you on the number they already have rather than any number in the email. You can send it alongside your first request.

The other thing that stalls a first request is a sub who does not have a current certificate and is not sure how to get one. That is a two-line email to their own agent, and the page that spells out what to ask for is written for them rather than for you — sending it is usually faster than explaining it.

What the page shows them

• Only what is still outstanding. A document already on file and approved drops off the list, so a sub who owes you one thing is asked for one thing.
• Your name and your branding, not ours — it should look like it came from the contractor they are working for, because it did.
• A confirmation in place, once a document uploads. The tile they just used says the file arrived and is being reviewed, rather than vanishing and leaving them wondering whether it worked.

A link can be scoped to specific documents, so a request for a renewed certificate does not present them with the whole checklist again. You can regenerate a link if it was lost, or revoke one if it went to the wrong person.

What happens when they don't reply

Which is most of the time, at first — not out of obstruction, but because a renewal certificate is nobody's most urgent job until it is.

Sealinn watches the expiry date on every document on file and chases ahead of it, by default at 90, 60, 30 and 7 days before expiry. On a certificate that means the general liability, workers compensation and auto dates — so a comp policy ending before the rest is chased on its own. You can pick a different cadence from 90, 60, 30, 14, 7, 3 or 1 days out, and choose whether each reminder goes to the subcontractor, to your own team, or to both.

If a reminder goes unanswered for 3 days it escalates to you, so a silent sub becomes something you know about rather than something you find out about. The cadence runs by email. On Growth and above you can also text a subcontractor yourself from their record, which for some trades is the only channel that gets read.

This is the one requirement the certificate itself is worst at delivering — the ACORD 25's cancellation clause promises you almost nothing in practice, which 30 days notice of cancellation explains. Running the countdown yourself is the part you can actually make real.

When what they send is wrong

You reject it with a reason — usually one your requirement set already caught for you — and the sub gets that reason plus a fresh upload link in the same message — so "the waiver is missing" arrives with the means to fix it attached, rather than as an email they have to reply to. Rejected documents stay recoverable for 3 days in case the rejection was the mistake, then clear themselves out.

What this does not solve

None of this makes a subcontractor produce insurance they do not have. If a sub is uninsured, the fastest, most polite reminder system in the world will simply establish that fact sooner — which is worth a great deal, but it is not the same as solving it.

What it does remove is the part that was costing you: remembering who owes what, noticing a date before it passes, and writing the chasing emails. That is most of the work, and it is all of the part that gets dropped when a job gets busy.