What we heard at our first IRMI Construction Risk Conference

This week Forsured showed up at IRMI's Construction Risk Conference at the Gaylord National in National Harbor. It was our first CRC. We weren't on the sponsor list and we didn't have a booth. We had orange polos, an independent field guide to the conference, a short video about catching the COI gap, and one question for everyone we met: what happens to a contractor COI after it's filed?

The answers were consistent enough that we want to share them. Nobody below is named, because these were hallway conversations, not interviews.

1. Too many red alerts, not enough answers

The complaint we heard most came from people already paying for COI tracking. Their tools flag everything. Certificates get rejected over small formatting issues, contractors get frustrated, and the alerts that matter (a lapsed policy, an umbrella below the project requirement, an additional insured endorsement without completed operations) get lost in the noise.

What they want is a review that reads the certificate and the endorsements the way a risk manager would, ranks what actually exposes the project, and says why.

2. Brokers want data for renewals

Brokers told us the same thing in different words: show me what my client's contracts actually required last year, and how often their contractors fell short. With umbrella and excess rates still rising (WTW expects another 5% to 15% in 2027), walking into a renewal with that data is worth more than another stack of certificates.

3. Carriers care how contractors manage the trades they hire

Underwriters are paying attention to contractor management. Carrier teams we spoke with were interested in tools they could point their construction insureds to, because a contractor that checks every COI against project requirements is a better risk.

4. Big projects are still run on spreadsheets

Some of the largest projects represented at CRC still track contractor insurance in spreadsheets and inboxes. Certificates arrive in different formats from different countries, and the people responsible know they can't see the whole picture.

5. The words matter

We came in using the general contractor's shorthand for the paperwork. By the end of day 1 we'd switched to "project requirements" and "contractor COIs." The neutral wording works for general contractors, trade contractors and owners alike, and it describes the real job: every contractor, checked against what the project requires.

What's next

We're following up with everyone who asked to see Forsured on their own paperwork. If we didn't get to meet you at the Gaylord, the offer is the same: a free COI risk check, no strings attached. Send one project's requirements and a contractor COI or two to hello@forsured.ai, and we'll walk you through every gap we find.

We'll also keep writing here every weekday about what's moving in construction insurance and contractor COI compliance. Thank you to IRMI and everyone in National Harbor who stopped to talk.