Certificate of insurance (COI)
A certificate of insurance is a carrier-issued document summarizing an active insurance policy: the insured entity, carrier, coverage lines, limits, and policy dates.
In a PEO relationship the COI answers a question the sales deck does not: which entity actually holds the workers compensation policy covering your employees. On a master-policy arrangement the certificate names the PEO as the insured, with your company listed as an alternate employer or in a client endorsement. On a client-based arrangement your company is the named insured. The difference controls whose loss history the claims land on and what happens to coverage the day the service agreement ends.
Request a COI at proposal stage, not after signing, and read the entity name, carrier rating, policy period, and endorsements rather than filing it unread. Your own customers may also require COIs from you (general contractors and property managers routinely do), so ask the PEO how quickly it issues certificates naming your customers as certificate holders. A slow certificate desk is an operational problem for trades and staffing companies that need same-day proof of coverage to start work.