Comparison
Pikorua Security vs. Outsourced COI Review Services
Outsourced review services take certificates off your desk: a remote team checks each COI against your requirements and reports back. That works until you need the result to do something, like hold a payment, lock a badge or prove what was checked when a tender is denied. Pikorua Security does the same review in seconds, keeps the decision and the evidence in your account and enforces it in your own systems.
Scorecard
13 verification and enforcement checks, scored from the table below.
Outsourced review services
3 / 13 built in
3 yes, 8 partial, 2 no
Time per packet: About 10 minutes of your team's time per packet, plus turnaround in business days.
Pikorua Security
13 / 13 built in
13 yes, 0 partial, 0 no
Time per packet: About 15 seconds to read, then about 3 minutes of human sign-off on flagged results.
Capability by capability
Outsourced review services and Pikorua Security, row by row.
15 capabilities, side by side
- Yes, built in
- Partial or manual
- No
| Capability | Outsourced review services | Pikorua Security |
|---|---|---|
| Reads ACORD 25 and ACORD 28 fields | Yes. A review team keys or extracts certificate fields. | Yes. Limits by line, policy numbers, dates, insurers and certificate holder, extracted in about 15 seconds. |
| Reads attached endorsement pages | Partial. Depends on the service level purchased; endorsement review is often scoped separately. | Yes. Deep OCR on every attached form, with the form number and edition read from the page footer. |
| Validates ISO edition dates | Partial. Depends on the reviewer and the checklist you supply. | Yes. Compares 11 85, 10 01, 07 04 and 04 13 editions with the edition your exhibit allows. |
| Detects missing CG 20 37 completed operations | Partial. Checked when endorsements are in scope and the checklist asks for it. | Yes. Requires CG 20 37 or equivalent completed operations wording whenever the exhibit calls for it. |
| Flags limiting exclusions (CG 21 39, CG 22 94, CG 21 44) | Partial. Only if the forms schedule is requested and reviewed. | Yes. Flags CG 21 39, CG 24 26, CG 22 94 and CG 21 44 wherever they appear in the packet. |
| Verifies waivers of subrogation (CG 24 04, WC 00 03 13, CA 04 44) | Partial. Checked against your checklist when endorsements are in scope. | Yes. Checks the form and the party it names on general liability, auto and workers compensation. |
| Confirms primary and non-contributory wording (CG 20 01) | Partial. Same as waivers: in scope only if purchased. | Yes. Verifies CG 20 01 or equivalent wording against the tier the vendor's contract requires. |
| AM Best rating check (A- VII or better) | Yes. Usually part of the review checklist. | Yes. Checks Financial Strength Rating and Financial Size Category on every packet. |
| Chases the vendor and its retail insurance agent | Partial. The service contacts the vendor; escalations come back to your team. | Yes. One deficiency checklist to the vendor and its agent, with a zero-login upload link. |
| Renewal cadence | Yes. Reminders run on the service's schedule. | Yes. 60, 30, 15 and 0 days before expiration, automatically. |
| Payment holds in Procore, CMiC, Yardi or AppFolio | No. Results arrive as a report; your team applies holds by hand. | Yes. Places and releases holds through the connector as documents fail or verify. |
| Jobsite and building access control | No. Site and building access stay with your team. | Yes. Locks Openpath or Brivo badges for deficient vendors on Enterprise. |
| Audit trail for tender defense | Partial. Review notes live in the provider's system under its retention terms. | Yes. Time-stamped verification log, every document version and the exhibit, exported as one packet. |
| Reviewer time per COI packet | About 10 minutes of your team's time per packet, plus turnaround in business days. | About 15 seconds to read, then about 3 minutes of human sign-off on flagged results. |
| Annual cost at 150 vendors | Service fees plus about 245 internal hours (about $11,000) for intake, exceptions and holds. | $8,388 a year on Professional, plus about 79 reviewer hours (about $3,550). |
Cost of approach
The cost of each approach, in hours and dollars.
Your inputs
Subcontractors, suppliers or carriers that send you COIs in a year.
CFMA Time Study: 25 to 40 minutes per COI and endorsement packet.
A $45 loaded project manager hour is the default.
Leave at 0 to compare staff time only.
Estimated annual cost
Outsourced review services
$10,998
244 hours of your team's time. $10,998 in staff time.
Pikorua Security
$11,939
79 hours of your team's time. $3,551 staff time + $8,388 Professional plan.
- Hours returned to your team
- 165
- Pikorua Security costs more per year by
- $941
At this size the time saved does not cover the subscription on its own. The case rests on what this approach cannot do on every packet: verify endorsement editions, catch a missing CG 20 37 and hold payment until it is fixed.
How this is calculated
- Each vendor sends 2 packets a year (initial COI and one renewal). 71% of packets are deficient on first review (AGC Risk Committee Audit), and each deficient packet is reviewed again when the correction arrives.
- The service reviews each packet; your team spends about 30% of a full review on intake, questions and exceptions.
- Escalations and payment holds come back to your team, about 45 minutes per defect.
- Pikorua Security reads each packet automatically; a person spends about 3 minutes signing off flagged results and about 15 minutes on escalations per defect. Broker chasing runs on the 60, 30, 15 and 0 day cadence.
- Plan by vendor count: Starter up to 75 ($3,588 a year), Professional 75 to 300 ($8,388), Enterprise above 300 (from $16,800).
Why teams outsource COI review
Outsourcing makes sense on paper. COI review is repetitive, needs real insurance knowledge and competes with everything else a project manager or property manager has to do. A review service takes certificates off the desk, applies a checklist and returns a status, and the team stops spending 25 to 40 minutes on every packet.
For an organization with no risk staff, a service can be the first time anyone checks certificates consistently. The question is what happens after the status comes back.
Turnaround, context and the 28-day loop
A service works in queues measured in business days, and it sees the certificate without the context around it: which project, which exhibit tier, whether the subcontractor mobilizes on Monday. When something is deficient, the finding comes back to your team, your team contacts the vendor and the vendor contacts its agent. Done by hand, that loop averages 28 days from deficiency to corrected certificate.
Pikorua Security reads each packet in about 15 seconds, matches it to the right exhibit automatically and sends the deficiency checklist straight to the vendor and its retail insurance agent with a zero-login upload link. Across Pikorua Security customers, average broker resolution is 4.2 days.
Data, evidence and who owns the decision
When a tender is denied, you need to show what was verified, against which clause, on what date and by whom. With a service, that record lives in someone else's system under someone else's retention terms. Ask any provider how long review notes are kept and in what format you can export them.
Pikorua Security keeps the evidence in your account: every document version, the governing exhibit, the rule results and a time-stamped verification log, exportable as one tender packet. Data is encrypted with AES-256 at rest and TLS 1.3 in transit, Pikorua Security is SOC 2 Type II, and customer COIs and contracts are never used to train AI models.
Switching from a service to software
The work a service did by hand becomes rules. Upload your insurance exhibits, import the vendor list and current certificates, and Pikorua Security re-verifies the whole file in the first two weeks, which usually turns up endorsement gaps the old checklist never asked about. Exceptions land in a queue your team works in minutes rather than hours.
Teams without risk staff can start on Enterprise with a dedicated risk engineer who configures the rules and reviews edge cases with you. Payment holds and badge locks then enforce the result without anyone relaying a report.
Questions
Questions teams ask before they switch.
We don't have staff to run a COI program. Is software realistic?
Can we keep an outside reviewer for unusual forms?
How does Pikorua Security pricing compare with per-certificate fees?
Other comparisons
Not how you work today?
Manual spreadsheets
Front-page OCR tools
Broker certificate desk
Related reading: customer stories, CG 20 37 completed operations and CG 20 10 editions.
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