COI requests are the most frequent manual task in most agencies, running 10-40 per day at 4-8 minutes each. You automate them by connecting your AMS to a certificate-generation workflow triggered by email or client request. Full automation handles the lookup, generation, and delivery with no CSR involved.

What does the manual COI process actually look like?

The manual process runs through five steps every single time. Doesn't matter if it's the third COI of the day or the thirtieth.

Step 1 — Request comes in (1-2 min). Client or contractor emails, texts, or calls. Someone has to read it, parse the details, figure out which policy applies. If it came by phone, someone transcribed it first.

Step 2 — AMS lookup (1-2 min). CSR opens Applied Epic, AMS360, EZLynx, or HawkSoft. Finds the account. Pulls up the correct policy. Checks that coverage is active and that the requested limits match what's on file.

Step 3 — Certificate generation (1-2 min). Opens the ACORD 25 template. Fills in the certificate holder details. Types the description of operations if one was requested. Double-checks the effective dates.

Step 4 — Review and send (1 min). Glances at the cert before it goes out. E&O risk lives here. One wrong field and you've got a problem. Then emails it to whoever requested it, sometimes CC-ing the insured too.

Step 5 — AMS update (1 min). Logs the activity. Notes who got the cert and when. Closes the ticket if there is one.

That's 5-8 minutes per COI. Multiply by 20 requests on a busy day and you're at 100-160 minutes. Nearly three hours of a CSR's day gone to one task.

Why are COI requests the best place to start automating?

Frequency times time. No other daily task at an insurance agency combines high volume with consistent structure the way COIs do. The process is almost identical every time. That predictability is what makes automation possible.

Renewals are high-impact but seasonal. Carrier portal entry is painful but irregular. Policy changes vary wildly in complexity. COI requests are high-volume, low-variation, and happen every single day.

Run the math on your own agency. If you're handling 15 COIs per day at 6 minutes each, that's 90 minutes daily, 450 minutes per week, roughly 37 hours per month. Automation doesn't eliminate all of it. A tuned system can realistically cut 80% of that.. 30 hours a month recovered from one task.

And the compounding effect is real. When CSRs stop spending three hours a day on certificates, that time flows to renewals, cross-sells, and actual client relationships. The value isn't just in the COI time itself.

What COI automation options exist for insurance agencies?

Three paths. Each with different cost, complexity, and ceiling.

Option 1: AMS-native automation

Applied Epic has the most mature native COI tooling. You can configure certificate templates, set up auto-generation rules, and with the right Epic configuration, push certificates from a client portal request without CSR involvement. The limiting factor is setup time. Most agencies using Epic are underutilizing what's already in their license.

AMS360 has certificate management built in but it's more manual than Epic. You can streamline the generation step and batch-produce certs, but true auto-fulfillment requires some workflow configuration and usually a third-party connector for the intake side.

EZLynx has a COI workflow inside their Agency Management module. It's solid for smaller agencies. Cert generation is faster than the manual process but not fully automated without pairing it with their client portal or an intake form that feeds requests directly into the system.

HawkSoft is the most limited of the four on native COI automation. Certificate generation is clean but the intake and delivery side requires more external tooling. If you're on HawkSoft, you're likely looking at a hybrid approach.

AMS-native is the right starting point for most agencies because it costs nothing additional. You're using what you're already paying for.

Option 2: Third-party COI platforms

These platforms sit on top of your AMS and add a layer of automation, tracking, and compliance management that native tools don't offer.

myCOI is the most widely used. It automates certificate collection from subcontractors, compliance tracking, and renewal reminders. Pricing runs roughly $300-$600/month for mid-size agency use cases. Strong fit if you're managing certificates for commercial clients who have vendors and subcontractors sending certs to them.

Evident focuses on certificate collection and compliance verification. Similar use case to myCOI. Better fit for agencies with large commercial books where the volume of inbound certs (not just outbound) is the problem. Pricing is similar tier.

PINS (Procore Insurance Network Services) is specifically built for the construction industry. If your commercial book skews heavily toward contractors, PINS handles the compliance tracking side extremely well. More specialized than myCOI but deeper on that vertical.

The tradeoff with third-party platforms: they solve the compliance and tracking problem better than any AMS-native tool. But they add a monthly cost and another system to manage. Worth it if COI compliance tracking is a real pain point, not just COI issuance volume.

Option 3: Custom AI automation

This is the approach we build at Desaflow. An AI layer watches incoming email or a request form, reads the certificate request, looks up the policy in the AMS, generates the cert, and sends it. No CSR in the loop for standard requests.

The workflow looks like this: email arrives, AI parses the request and extracts the certificate holder details, the system queries the AMS API to confirm coverage, the ACORD 25 template is populated, the cert is emailed to the requester and logged in the AMS. Start to finish in under 2 minutes, with no human touching it unless there's an exception (coverage mismatch, non-standard request, missing information).

Cost to run this kind of custom automation starts around $300-$500/month depending on volume and which AMS you're on. Applied Epic with API access is the cleanest build. HawkSoft requires more work on the integration side.

The ceiling on custom automation is higher than both AMS-native and third-party platforms. You can extend it to handle exceptions, trigger follow-ups, or connect to your CRM. But it takes longer to set up correctly than either of the other options.

How much time does COI automation actually save?

The real number depends on your current volume, not on a vendor's marketing claim. Run this calculation with your own numbers before deciding on an approach.

Here's the math at three different agency sizes:

Small agency, 10 COIs/day:
10 requests × 6 minutes = 60 min/day × 22 working days = 22 hours/month.
80% automation coverage = 17-18 hours recovered per month.

Mid-size agency, 25 COIs/day:
25 requests × 6 minutes = 150 min/day × 22 days = 55 hours/month.
80% automation coverage = 44 hours recovered per month. That's more than a full week of CSR time.

Larger agency, 40 COIs/day:
40 requests × 6 minutes = 240 min/day × 22 days = 88 hours/month.
80% automation coverage = 70 hours recovered per month. Across 2 CSRs, that's roughly 35 hours each freed up for actual client work.

The 80% figure comes from what we see in practice. Most COI requests are standard. Certificate holder name, limits from the existing policy, standard description of operations. Those handle automatically. The remaining 20% have something unusual: a non-standard holder, a certificate holder that needs to be added as additional insured with a specific endorsement, a request for limits the policy doesn't carry. Those still need a CSR.

But 80% automated means your CSRs spend 20% of their old COI time on the interesting problems instead of 100% of their time on all of them.

How do you measure if COI automation is working?

Track four numbers, before and after. If you don't have baselines before you start, you're guessing at ROI.

1. Average fulfillment time. How long from request received to certificate sent? Manual average is usually 15-45 minutes when you factor in queue time (the CSR isn't always available immediately). Automation target is under 5 minutes for standard requests.

2. CSR hours on COIs per week. Have someone log time for two weeks before you implement anything. This is your baseline. After 30 days of automation running, compare. The delta is your time saved.

3. Exception rate. What percentage of COI requests couldn't be handled automatically? This number tells you where to improve your automation rules. If you're at 35% exceptions, something in your intake or AMS integration isn't working right. A tuned system runs at 15-20%.

4. Client complaints or re-requests. If a cert went out wrong, you'll hear about it. Track re-requests as a quality signal. A jump in re-requests after automation launch usually means the cert template or the policy data lookup has an error somewhere.

Run the measurement for 60 days before declaring it working. First 30 days you're still tuning. Second 30 days shows you the actual steady-state performance.

Agencies often discover during the measurement phase that their COI volume is higher than they thought. When you start logging every request, the actual count is usually 20-30% higher than the rough estimate people give you before you start tracking.

The math on COI automation is about as clean as it gets in agency operations. High volume, predictable process, measurable output. Pick your approach based on what you're already paying for and how much custom work you want to take on.

If you're on Applied Epic or EZLynx, start with what's in your AMS. Get that running. See what the exception rate looks like. Then decide if a third-party platform or custom layer is worth layering on top.

The certificates are the cleanest place to start. The numbers bear that out every time.

- aibek