Product
What to review on a certificate — and what it cannot prove
Sealinn currently keeps the COI beside a human review and customer decision. Automated field extraction and automatic requirement checks are unavailable.
The current workflow is a human review
You set the COI limits and endorsement evidence your organization requires. An authorized reviewer opens the original certificate, records the values the decision relies on, compares them with the organization or project requirement set, and documents the customer decision.
Automatic checks are currently unavailable
New COIs are not automatically read, routed by confidence, or checked field by field against requirements. A saved requirement does not mean Sealinn has already verified a new upload.
Sealinn ships no opinion about what a subcontractor should carry. What to require depends on the job, your state, and the contracts above you. What to require before a sub starts explains the insurance questions; your own adviser should resolve decisions specific to your work.
The COI review checklist
| Evidence or requirement | What the reviewer should look for |
|---|---|
| Named insured | The legal entity on the subcontract, not a related company |
| General liability limits | Per-occurrence, aggregate, and completed-operations amounts |
| General liability dates | The recorded work period falls inside the policy dates shown |
| Workers' compensation | Coverage is shown when required, with the relevant dates and limits |
| Auto liability | The required combined single limit and supporting dates are present |
| Umbrella or excess | The required occurrence limit and relevant period are shown |
| Additional insured | The box is marked and the separate endorsement evidence is collected |
| Waiver of subrogation | The box is marked and the applicable endorsement is collected |
| Primary and non-contributory | The certificate statement and separate evidence match your requirement |
A missing field and a value below your requirement both need a customer decision. Do not turn an unreadable field into a pass, and do not edit the recorded evidence to the number you hoped to see.
What the certificate does not prove
- A marked box does not prove the endorsement exists. Ask for the endorsement page.
- The certificate does not confirm the policy remains in force. It is a snapshot, not a carrier lookup.
- A printed aggregate does not show how much remains. Prior claims are not reported on the certificate.
- A carrier name is not a rating. Check the authority or rating source your process requires.
- A customer approval is not a coverage opinion. It records the customer's operational decision on the evidence available.
What automatic checking is designed to do if enabled later
If automated extraction and checking are deliberately enabled in the future, the design is intended to compare supported extracted values with the requirement set, fail closed on missing decisive fields, and keep uncertain values visible for an authorized reviewer. That conditional design is documented in how automated certificate reading is designed to work. It is not current processing.
Non-COI document readers are not currently supported
Sealinn does not currently request, accept, newly read, or require W-9s, licenses, safety cards, or custom documents. Authorized historical files remain readable; that access does not enable new collection.
- [W-9](/guides/w9-from-subcontractors) — use the secure tax-document process approved by your accountant or counsel.
- [Contractor or trade license](/guides/contractor-license-verification) — verify through the issuing authority and retain a dated result in your approved process.
- [Safety certification](/guides/safety-certifications-to-require) — OSHA cards do not federally expire; any saved 5-year validity window is your policy and is not an active Sealinn status rule.
What the review record preserves
The human decision, supporting evidence, actions, and available history can feed four compliance reports — organization, expiring documents, subcontractor and project — plus your subcontractor roster and the audit log. Available reports and the audit log export as PDF, Excel or CSV. Those records describe what the customer reviewed and decided; they do not certify insurance coverage.
Start with one human-reviewed COI.
Keep the original certificate, the requirement checklist, and the customer decision together. Free for up to 10 subcontractors.