AI-Powered COI Document Analysis Tool
The Problem
Managing Certificates of Insurance (COIs) is a critical but tedious process in the insurance and contracting space. Companies need to verify coverage details, track expiration dates, ensure compliance, and cross-reference endorsement documents — all manually. With hundreds of certificates to manage, this creates a bottleneck that slows operations and increases the risk of expired or non-compliant coverage slipping through.
Our client needed a tool that could automate the heavy lifting: upload a COI, let AI extract the key data, flag issues, and handle ongoing monitoring.
A single missed insurance expiration can expose a company to significant liability. The tool needed to be accurate, fast, and proactive — catching issues before they become problems.
Context
The client operated in a fast-paced environment where contractors regularly submit certificates of insurance. Each COI contains critical information: policy numbers, expiration dates, coverage amounts, insured names, and endorsement details. Manually reviewing each document was consuming significant staff hours and leaving room for human error.
The challenge was building an AI system that could reliably extract structured data from PDFs that vary wildly in format, layout, and quality.
Approach
Upload & AI Extraction
We built a user-friendly interface for contractors to upload COI documents and endorsement files. The backend processes uploads through Azure AI's document intelligence service, extracting key fields:
- Policy numbers and transaction types
- Insured names and mailing addresses
- Expiration dates across all coverage types
- Coverage amounts and limits
- Commercial liability, automobile, and worker's compensation details
The extraction pipeline handles the wide variety of COI formats used across the insurance industry, normalizing the data into a consistent structure.
Analysis & Comparison Engine
We built the AI-powered analysis layer that goes beyond simple extraction. The system:
- Categorizes extracted data by coverage type (Commercial Liability, Automobile, Worker's Compensation)
- Highlights missing or problematic fields with visual indicators
- Compares COI documents against endorsement documents to identify discrepancies
- Generates a comprehensive Insurance Status Overview with pass/fail indicators
- Provides a COI and Endorsements Comparison Overview
COI documents come in dozens of different formats from different insurers. The extraction pipeline needed extensive testing and fallback logic to handle edge cases — from scanned documents to poorly formatted PDFs.
Automated Monitoring & Alerts
The final piece: proactive monitoring. We implemented cron jobs that automatically check certificate expiration dates and send email notifications to stakeholders when a COI is within 30, 15, or 7 days of expiration — or has already expired.
The system also pushes extracted data directly to the client's CRM, keeping records up to date without manual intervention.
Architecture
The tech stack was chosen for robust document processing and AI capabilities:
- Frontend: Streamlit for rapid development and interactive data display
- Backend: Python for AI processing, cron jobs, and API endpoints
- AI Layer: GPT-4o for intelligent document analysis and comparison
- Document Processing: Azure AI Document Intelligence for COI data extraction
- Automation: Cron-based monitoring for expiration alerts and CRM sync
Results
The operational application was successfully delivered within three weeks, streamlining the client's workflow and reducing complexity. This led to significant productivity improvements, with work speed increased by 50%. The automated monitoring system ensures no certificate expiration goes unnoticed.
Next Steps
The client is eager to commence full end-to-end solution development, expanding the tool to handle additional document types and integrating deeper with their existing insurance management workflows.