COI Endorsement Verification Software Compared

Endorsement verification means reading the actual ISO endorsement pages attached behind a certificate, not the two checkboxes on the front of the ACORD 25. Of the platforms that publish anything about it, Evident prices it as a paid upgrade (Essential at $15 per vendor per year covers basic insurance types, Pro at $25 adds endorsement validation), and illumend, the platform myCOI now trades as, says its Lumie engine reviews endorsements line by line. Most competitors publish nothing at all, which is the single most useful thing to know before you sign. Pricing here was checked against each vendor's own pages in August 2026.

This matters because the certificate itself cannot answer the question. The ACORD 25 (2016/03) carries exactly two endorsement columns, ADDL INSD and SUBR WVD. There is no column for primary and non-contributory at all. So a platform that reads only the certificate face is structurally incapable of verifying one of the three requirements almost every commercial contract asks for. If you want to see how the rest of the evidence is buried in free text, read what the description of operations box on a certificate of insurance can and cannot legally say.

What each platform publishes about endorsement review

The table below records only what each vendor states publicly. Blank is not an accusation that a platform ignores endorsements. It means the vendor does not publish a claim about it, and you should make them answer the question in writing during the demo.

Two things stand out. First, only four of the eleven established platforms in this category publish any price at all, so most comparisons you will read are guesswork. Second, Evident has effectively put a public number on this feature. The gap between Essential and Pro is $10 per vendor per year, and the headline difference between those tiers is endorsement validation. That is the only visible market price for endorsement checking anywhere in the category, and it is a reasonable anchor when a salesperson tells you the feature is priceless.

What endorsement verification actually has to do

A useful check is not a keyword search for the phrase additional insured. It is four separate confirmations, and each one fails differently.

• The right form, not just a form. CG 20 10 grants additional insured status for ongoing operations. After the 10 01 edition it stopped covering completed operations, which is what CG 20 37 exists for. A packet with CG 20 10 and nothing else can leave you uncovered from the day the work finishes.
• The right edition date. CG 20 10 11 85 and CG 20 10 04 13 are not interchangeable. From the 04 13 edition onward, the endorsement will not be broader than what your contract required, so your own insurance requirements clause becomes a ceiling on your coverage. Require $1 million from a vendor carrying $10 million and the endorsement gives you $1 million.
• The written contract. Blanket and automatic forms grant status only where a signed written contract requires it. No contract, no coverage, whatever the certificate says.
• The things with no checkbox. Primary and non-contributory has to come from a CG 20 01 for general liability or a CA 04 49 for auto. Neither can ever be confirmed from the ACORD 25, because the form has no field for it.

Software that only reads the certificate face can do the fourth of these badly and the other three not at all. Full detail on each form sits on our certificate of insurance endorsements reference.

How much does endorsement verification cost?

Expect $10 to $15 per vendor per year on top of basic tracking if you buy it as a per-vendor upgrade, based on Evident's published tier gap. Managed and full-service models price it much higher because a person reads the documents: CertFocus publishes $13 to $29 per vendor per year for full service, against $6 to $8 self-service. Flat-rate platforms fold it into the subscription instead. Our full breakdown of what the category charges is on the COI tracking software pricing page.

The arithmetic that matters is not the per-vendor rate. It is the minimum. A $7,500 annual floor plus implementation is fine at 900 vendors and absurd at 60, which is why small and mid-sized teams usually land on flat-rate pricing and larger risk departments land on per-vendor.

Does COI tracking software read endorsements automatically?

Some does, some does not, and the marketing rarely distinguishes. Ask the vendor to process one of your real vendor packets during the trial: a certificate plus its attached endorsement pages, ideally one with a blanket additional insured form and a scanned page in it. Then ask which form numbers and edition dates the system extracted. A platform that returns CG 20 10 04 13 and CG 24 04 12 19 is reading the documents. A platform that returns additional insured: yes is reading a checkbox.

Can AI read a scanned endorsement page?

Yes, and this is where the newer platforms genuinely separate from the older ones. Endorsement pages arrive as scans, as photographs, and as PDFs printed from an agency management system, and the form number sits in small type in the bottom corner. Modern extraction handles that reliably, which is the same capability behind general purpose document data extraction tools used for invoices and contracts. The COI-specific part is not the reading, it is knowing that CG 20 37 matters and CG 20 10 alone is a gap.

Which platform should you shortlist?

If you have a small vendor list and want endorsement-level checking without a five-figure floor, flat-rate platforms are the practical choice. If you are running thousands of vendors inside an enterprise risk function, per-vendor pricing from Evident or a managed service from CertFocus will fit the shape of your budget better, and you should expect to pay for the endorsement tier explicitly. If your requirements are unusually strict, illumend publishes the most detailed endorsement claim of any vendor in the category, though you will have to ask for a price. We compared two of these directly in TrustLayer vs Evident, and the wider field is covered in our roundup of the best COI tracking software.

What to demand in the demo

Three questions, in writing, before you sign. Does the platform extract form numbers and edition dates from attached endorsement pages, or only flags from the certificate? Does it verify primary and non-contributory, and if so from which document, given that the ACORD 25 has no such field? And does it flag a conflict when the description of operations box discloses a blanket endorsement while the ADDL INSD checkbox is also ticked, which is a certificate issued against published agent guidance?

Any vendor that answers all three clearly is worth a trial. Upload one of your own vendor packets at the top of this page and see what comes back before you book a single call.