Certificate of Currency: What to Check and How AI Reads It

Every contractor who works on a building you manage sends you at least one certificate of currency, and most send two or three. On a property portfolio with a few hundred active contractors, that is a stack of insurance documents arriving every week, each one read by somebody in procurement or facilities, most of them in a hurry, and many of them wrong in a way that only shows up when there is a claim.

I lead the team that builds the AI features you will read about below, and the certificate of currency is the document we had in mind when we built document review. It is short, it is standard, and the mistakes on it are the same mistakes every time. This post is what to check on one, why a certificate is weaker evidence than most people treat it as, and what an AI check does and does not change.

What Is a Certificate of Currency?

A certificate of currency is a document that confirms a policy is in place as of the date it was issued, and lists the details of that policy.¹ It is not the policy. It is a summary the insurer or broker produces on request, so that a third party, such as a bank, a head contractor or a property owner, can see that cover exists without reading the policy wording.

On a certificate for business insurance you will usually find the insured's name, the type of policy, the policy number, the period of cover and the limit. A workers compensation certificate carries different details. In NSW, the certificate icare issues shows the business name and ABN, the wages declared, the industry classification and the number of workers covered.²

The phrase to hold on to is "as of the date of issue". A certificate records a moment. Everything else in this post follows from that.

Is a Certificate of Currency the Same as Public Liability Insurance?

No. Public liability insurance is a type of policy; a certificate of currency is the evidence that a policy exists. Public liability covers a business if someone dies, is injured or has their property damaged because of its negligence.³ A contractor can hold a certificate of currency for public liability, for workers compensation, for professional indemnity or for a vehicle, and a property manager asking for "the COC" usually wants the first two.

The law asks less than most people assume. Public liability insurance is required by law only for certain occupations in some states and territories, and workers compensation insurance is required for most businesses with employees, under each state's scheme.³ So unless a state requires public liability cover for the contractor's occupation, the limit you ask a contractor to carry comes from your contract and your property owner client. That matters when a contractor pushes back: the answer is your contract, and your procurement file should say which clause.

Is a Certificate of Currency the Same as a Certificate of Insurance?

In everyday Australian use, usually yes. Brokers such as HIA Insurance Services and upcover use the two terms for the same document: a short summary, issued once a policy is in place, that proves the cover and lists the details of the policy, though upcover notes that some insurers prefer one term.⁴⁵ A contractor who is asked for either will usually send the same page.

The difference matters in one place. A policy schedule attaches to and forms part of the contract of insurance, and sets out the insured's name, the period and the sums insured; a certificate of currency only confirms that a policy exists on the date it is issued.⁶ Prof. Allan Manning, an adjunct professor and insurance expert witness, wrote in 2017 that some insurers use "certificate of insurance" for the schedule, and that a broker that produces its own certificate of insurance, instead of forwarding the insurer's schedule, can get details wrong, such as an agreed value changed at renewal.⁶ So when a contract asks for the "certificate of insurance", read the document you receive for what it is, and ask which entity issued it. If the contract asks for the schedule or the endorsements, a certificate of currency does not satisfy it: it does not show every exclusion or condition, and the full terms sit in the policy wording, the schedule and any endorsements.⁵

What to Check on Every Certificate of Currency.

A certificate passes or fails on six lines. Read them in this order: who is insured, for what, until when, for how much, as of when, and for how many.

• The insured name and ABN. They should match the business you engaged, not a related company, a previous trading name or the director personally. A mismatch is easy to miss at a glance and expensive to find after a claim.
• The type of policy. Public liability, workers compensation and professional indemnity are three different documents. A contractor who sends one twice has not sent you the other.
• The period of cover. Check the end date against the end of the job, not against today. A policy that ends on Saturday does not cover Monday's work.
• The limit. Compare it with the minimum in your contract. Where a certificate shows separate limits for public and products liability, check each one the contract names.
• The issue date. A certificate issued a year ago tells you about a year ago. Ask for a fresh one when a policy renews and before any long job.
• The workers covered. On a workers compensation certificate, look at the number of workers and the industry classification, and compare them with the crew and the work.² A certificate covering 3 workers, with 6 names booked for the job, is a question to ask before the job starts, not after an injury.

If your contract requires your business or your client to be noted on the contractor's policy, check for that too. Everything above is a match between two things: what the certificate says, and what the job needs. That is why it is slow by hand and why it suits a machine.

One check sits outside the six: who issued it. A certificate can come from the insurer or from the broker that arranged the policy (upcover, a broker, says brokers issue them more commonly), and it should name the insurer underwriting it.⁵ Prof. Manning's view is that the insurer should issue it, because a broker that issues one without checking with the insurer can miss a cancellation or an endorsement.⁶ If a broker issued the certificate, check that it names the insurer, and for a large job ask the broker to confirm with the insurer that the policy has not been cancelled or endorsed since the certificate was issued.⁶

Why a Certificate Only Proves Cover on the Day It Was Issued.

A certificate of currency confirms cover on the day it was issued.¹ A policy can be cancelled, lapse for non-payment or change insurer after that day, and the certificate in your file will still look exactly the same. The certificate is not wrong. It is simply old.

Two habits close most of that gap. The first is to treat the policy end date as a hard stop: the contractor's access should depend on a current certificate, and the request for a new one should go out before the old one expires, not after. The second, for workers compensation in NSW, is a second check at the source. icare's Employer Lookup searches employers registered with icare and confirms whether a policy is in place, though not the wages, classification or worker numbers, and icare says it is refreshed each Monday.²

Absence needs care as well. WorkSafe Victoria says only employers required to register for WorkCover insurance will have a certificate.⁷ A sole trader with no employees may have no workers compensation certificate to give you, and rejecting them for it helps nobody. Record why the document is not there, so the next person reading the file does not treat a considered decision as a gap.

Workers Compensation Certificates Follow State Rules.

Australia has 11 main workers compensation schemes, one for each state and territory and three Commonwealth schemes, and each is governed by different laws.⁸ A contractor working across state lines may hold more than one policy, and a certificate from one scheme says nothing about another. For an FM provider with buildings in several states, the requirement has to be set per state, not once for the whole business.

Four of the schemes show how different the paperwork is. What each calls the document, what it shows and how long it runs are not the same, so read the certificate for the scheme it comes from rather than assuming it works like the last one.

Scheme	What the certificate is and shows	How to check it	When it runs
NSW (icare policies)	A Certificate of Currency with the business name and ABN, wages, industry classification and number of workers covered.2	Employer Lookup, described above.	A copy comes in the renewal pack, sent six weeks before the policy renews each year.2
Victoria (WorkSafe)	A Certificate of Currency that verifies the employer is registered for WorkCover. Only employers required to register have one.7	You can request a certificate as evidence that another business has current WorkCover insurance, using its WorkCover employer number and business postcode.7	Read the dates on the certificate itself.
Queensland (WorkCover Queensland)	An example certificate, issued for FY 2023-24, shows the employer name, trading name, ABN, ACN, policy number, a statement of cover under the Workers' Compensation and Rehabilitation Act 2003 (Qld), the insurance period and the WorkCover industry classification.9	Compare the entity, the period and the classification with the job and the crew.	The example covers 1 July 2023 to 30 June 2024.9
South Australia (ReturnToWorkSA)	A certificate of registration, also called a certificate of currency, with the employer name, trading name and employer number.10	The employer downloads it from its online services portal, so ask the contractor for the current one.	Available from 1 June each year and valid until 30 June the following year.10

The other states, the territories and the three Commonwealth schemes each run under their own laws. Ask which scheme covers the workers and read the certificate for the law it sits under.

NSW adds a document that belongs beside the certificate: the subcontractor's statement. The NSW Government's form is made for section 175B of the Workers Compensation Act 1987 (NSW), Schedule 2 Part 5 of the Payroll Tax Act 2007 (NSW) and section 127 of the Industrial Relations Act 1996 (NSW). It says that, completed in accordance with those provisions, it relieves a principal contractor of liability for the subcontractor's workers compensation premiums, payroll tax and remuneration, and that, where the subcontractor has employed or engaged workers, it must be accompanied by the relevant certificate of currency to comply with section 175B.¹¹

Three details on the form matter to a property business. The statement covers a stated period of work, and sequential statements should give continuous cover. A subcontractor that engages its own subcontractors must collect statements from them in turn.¹¹ And the form quotes section 127(11) of the Industrial Relations Act 1996 (NSW) as extending the remuneration provision to a principal contractor that owns or occupies a building and has work carried out on it for its business.¹¹ A property owner that owns or occupies the building for its business is not outside the remuneration provision because it is not a builder. The form describes a principal contractor as a business whose subcontractor's employees carry out work connected with the principal's business.

The form says the principal contractor must keep a copy of each statement for the periods the legislation sets, and that giving a principal contractor a statement known to be false is an offence.¹¹ This is general information about a Government form, not legal advice; the note at the end of this post says the same.

What AI Does Well on a Certificate, and What It Cannot.

A certificate of currency is close to the ideal document for AI review. It is short, the fields are predictable, and the check is a comparison against rules you can write down. A model reads a scanned PDF or a phone photo, finds the insured name, the dates and the limit, and says whether each one meets the criteria. It does that for the 300th certificate of the month as carefully as the first.

The value is less in speed than in consistency. The errors that cause real trouble are dull ones: an expiry date typed into the register with the wrong year, a related company's certificate accepted because the names looked alike, a limit read from the products line instead of the public liability line. A check that reads every field against the same criteria catches those at upload, while the contractor is still there to fix them.

What AI cannot do is know anything the certificate does not say. It cannot tell you a policy was cancelled after the certificate was issued. It cannot judge whether an unusual job, such as roof work on a heritage building, falls inside the policy's cover, because a certificate does not carry the policy wording. And it cannot decide that a contractor may start. AI reads, drafts, and answers against criteria you set. Your people still decide.

Worked Example: An Electrical Contractor Joining a Sydney Portfolio.

This is an illustration, not a customer story, but every step in it is one a procurement team will recognise.

What Arrived.

An FM provider manages 18 office buildings on Sydney's lower north shore for two property owners. A new electrical contractor is engaged for switchboard upgrades across four of the buildings over six weeks. On a Wednesday its office manager uploads three documents: a public liability certificate, an icare workers compensation certificate and a NSW subcontractor's statement.

What the AI Read.

In ComplyFlow the FM provider's procurement lead has set up a document category for each, with AI document review switched on and criteria written in her own words: the insured name matches the engaged business and its ABN, the limit meets the contract minimum, the policy period runs past the end of the booked work, and the certificate was issued in the last 12 months. Each upload is checked against the category's criteria and the contractor sees what passed and what did not before it goes for approval. The expiry date, the name and the document number are read off the document, and the contractor can correct the expiry date before submitting.¹²

The public liability certificate passes on name, ABN and limit and fails on the period, which ends 10 days before the last switchboard. The workers compensation certificate passes on name and dates; it shows 3 workers covered. The subcontractor's statement is present and dated for the current period. The contractor submits all three anyway, because the first job is on Monday.

What the Procurement Lead Decided.

The procurement lead opens the approval queue. For each checked document she sees which criteria passed, the expiry date read from the document beside the one the contractor typed, and a recommendation.¹² She approves the workers compensation certificate and the statement, and asks for a renewed public liability certificate before the last two buildings are booked. The 3 workers covered is a number she can see, and it does not match the 5 electricians on the booking, so she asks the contractor whether two are labour hire and, if so, for that firm's certificate. The AI recommended. She decided.

What Was Kept.

Each check stays listed on the document with its date and outcome, including earlier checks when a file is replaced.¹² On the contractor's side, the renewal request sits on their Requirements Dashboard, which filters to anything Expired or Expiring Soon.¹³ If the property owner's auditor asks in a year why this contractor was on the switchboards, the answer is on the record.

A month later, before a quarterly review, the FM provider's operations manager asks ChatGPT, Claude or GitHub Copilot which contractors at the lower north shore buildings have expired insurance documents. It answers from the live record through ComplyFlow's MCP server, which checks every request against that person's permissions, their site assignments and the scopes on their token, and which is read-only if you want it to be.¹⁴ The same pattern works for a transport and logistics operator checking carriers' certificates before a load is booked.

Criteria to Start With: A Checklist for an FM Provider.

Criteria are the part only you can write, because they come from your contracts. A starting set for the two certificates a building contractor usually sends:

Certificate	Criterion	Why it is there
Public liability	Insured name and ABN match the engaged business	Stops a related company's cover being accepted
Public liability	Limit meets the contract minimum	The requirement is contractual, not statutory
Public liability	Period runs past the end of the booked work	A certificate proves cover on its issue date only
Workers compensation	Issued under the scheme that covers these workers for this work	Each scheme runs under its own law
Workers compensation	Workers covered and classification fit the crew and the work	The numbers are on the certificate for a reason
NSW subcontractor's statement	Present, signed, for the current period, with the certificate attached where the subcontractor has workers	The form says so, and it is kept for years

If you are the procurement lead who owns contractor approval across a property and facilities management portfolio, write those criteria once and let every upload meet them. For the wider picture of where AI helps in safety work and where it must stop, AI in workplace safety: uses, limits and the law is the companion piece, and how AI prequalification works covers the questionnaire that comes before any certificate. The AI features overview has the rest.

A certificate of currency is one document in a set. For the other documents a subcontractor should hold, how to verify each one at its source and when each expires, with a checklist to download, see what documents to hold for every subcontractor. It sits inside contractor management, and the same insurance checks are part of the prequalification questionnaire.

The payoff is not that a machine reads your certificates. It is that nobody on your team spends the week before an audit finding out which ones were already out of date.