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This guide is part of the User Guides collection. It covers reminders on vendor documents: certificates of insurance, SOC reports, ISO certificates and anything else with an expiry. For reminders on the dates in a contract record, see Contract dates and reminders.
A certificate of insurance lapses. A SOC 2 report goes stale. An ISO certificate reaches its expiry. Coverbase can email someone before each of those happens, and this guide covers the three decisions you make: when the email goes out, who receives it, and where you see what is coming.

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Where reminders are configured

Two places, one editor. Whichever you use, you are editing the same org-wide policy.

From a document

Open the vendor, open the document, then Actions → Configure notifications. The document’s type is already selected.

From Documents

Go to Configuration → Documents → Reminders for every reminder your organization has, in one table.
Reminders apply to every document of that type, across every vendor, not to the one document you opened. Changing the certificate of insurance reminder changes it for all of them.

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When the reminder fires

A reminder is one or more conditions, each an offset from a date on the document:
  • 30 days before the policy expiration date
  • on the policy expiration date
  • 7 days after it, to chase a certificate that never arrived
Which dates you can choose from depends on the document type. A certificate of insurance offers its policy expiration date, policy effective date and certificate date. A SOC report offers its publication date and audit period dates. A certification such as ISO 27001 offers its expiry, issue and next audit dates, and a PCI attestation its next assessment due date. Every type also offers the document’s own expiration date, the one you can set by hand.

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Certificates covering several policies

A certificate of insurance often covers general liability, auto, umbrella and workers’ compensation, each with its own expiry. Coverbase treats each coverage line as its own date, so a reminder fires ahead of each one. Two policies expiring on the same day produce one email that names both, rather than two that look like duplicates.

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Documents with no extracted date

Coverbase reads dates out of the documents it knows how to parse. For everything else (a professional license, a tax certificate, a zip archive) set the date yourself: open the document, then Actions → Set expiration date. Once it is set, that document can carry reminders like any other.
If a condition points at a date the document does not have, the editor says so. The reminder is saved, but it cannot fire until the date exists.

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Who receives it

Each reminder has a To line and a Cc line. Add any mix of: Roles resolve per vendor when the reminder fires, so “risk analyst” means that vendor’s risk analyst.
To route certificate expiries to your risk analysts instead of the relationship owner, put Risk analyst on the To line and move Relationship owner to Cc, or take it off entirely.

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If nobody resolves

Everyone on either line gets their own email. If no To recipient resolves for a vendor (for example, nobody is assigned as its risk analyst), the Cc recipients still receive it, so the reminder still lands. If neither line resolves to anyone, no email is sent for that vendor. Reminders to people in your organization also appear in their Coverbase notifications and follow each person’s own notification settings. Addresses outside it, such as a vendor contact or a typed email, are emailed directly.

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Seeing what is expiring

Configuration → Documents → Expirations lists every date across every document, soonest first, with:
  • how long until it expires, or how long ago it passed
  • which coverage line it belongs to, on a certificate covering several
  • whether a reminder covers that date at all
Filter by window to answer two questions: what has already passed, and what expires in the next 30 days.
A row marked No rule has a date nobody is being reminded about. That is usually the row to act on first.

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When reminders go out

Once a day. A reminder set for “30 days before” goes out on the day that is exactly 30 days ahead of the date, not repeatedly through the month. Add several conditions if you want several nudges.

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Read expirations from MCP or the API

You can list what is expiring from an MCP client or with an API key. An MCP client reads with query_vendors(kind="document_expirations"), and the reminder rules with query_platform(kind="rules"). With an API key, use POST /v1/documents/expirations/query. See Vendor documents. Reminder rules change with mutate(entity="rule", action=...) (create, update) or the /v1/rules routes. Those need organization settings permission, which API keys do not hold, so use a key created by a person whose role holds it. Before an MCP client sends a write, it shows you the change and waits for you to confirm it. The MCP tool reference lists every field.

Contract dates and reminders

Reminders on the dates in a contract record.

Email notifications

Every email Coverbase sends, and who receives it.

Document Insights guide

The fields Coverbase reads out of each document, including its dates.