How To Seamlessly Migrate Your COI Tracking Solution

Each business is unique, and so too is its certificate of insurance (COI) tracking solution migration. Depending on your needs, bandwidth, timeline, budget, and current COI tracking system, the process may vary. However, to seamlessly migrate your COI tracking solution, you will likely need to complete the following steps: 

Review Your Records Before Migration

Prior to moving your documentation, you should have a clear idea of what you have in your existing system. How many COIs? What other types of files? What data will be affected? 

Once you’ve established a clear overview of the documents you plan to transfer, prioritize what should be moved first, what you no longer need, and what holes exist in your files.
 

Choose an Approach & Plan Your Migration

There are two primary approaches to data migration. Each carries potential benefits and disadvantages, so which is ideal rests on your needs and priorities. 

• Big Bang: Big bang migrations occur in one short window. Such an operation usually requires significant preparation, but typically leads to little or no downtime during which COIs are inaccessible. However, failure can be costly and require a complete rollback. 
• Trickle: The trickle method is a more agile approach, in which the process is broken down into smaller goals and conducted over a longer timeframe. Lessons learned along the way can help shape subsequent steps in the process. However, users may have to continue to use two separate solutions to access COIs until the migration is complete. 

Backup Data

Whenever you’re transitioning between solutions, you should back up your data in case something goes wrong. If you have professional help, migrating between COI tracking platforms should be relatively simple, but it never hurts to keep those backups handy as a failsafe. Cloud-based options are usually the most secure. 

Stick to a Methodology

Before beginning migration, your business should define an approach with clear design, budget, timelines, and deliverables. Following this plan throughout the process and documenting each step will keep you on track and ensure you have the right resources at the right times.

Test the Results

Along the way, test the results to ensure your COI transfer is complete and accurate. You might do this by spot-checking the documentation for vendors to ensure it is consistent and complete within the new platform. 

Why Is It Important To Seamlessly Migrate Your COI Tracking Solution?

COI tracking for business is critical for effective risk transfer, so by extension, precise migration is also essential to risk management for the following reasons: 

Maintain Accurate Records

Without accurate records, liability may fall on your business if something goes wrong with a third-party contractor or vendor. Maintaining up-to-date, comprehensive documentation makes it easier to spot gaps in coverage and correct them to ensure consistent compliance. It also gives you all the policy information you need to have on hand, should something go wrong. 

Avoid Redundancies

Redundancies are a frequent pitfall of data migration. Depending on the system you’re transitioning away from, you may already have duplicate copies of COIs. Weeding out these redundancies and preventing new issues from arising can help keep your data precise and easy to navigate. 

Sustain Growth

Migrating to a new system can help you sustain your growth. Antiquated COI tracking systems may limit the number of documents you can maintain simultaneously, making it difficult to manage paperwork for a growing vendor base. 

Increase Productivity

Implementing a new COI tracking solution for business can increase your team’s productivity by enabling them to access, review, and track COIs and other documents with ease. Planning the migration carefully can also reduce downtime, and ensure you always have access to the relevant information. 

bcs offers two distinct COI tracking solutions. The self-service option grants users access to the cloud-based bcs app for easy COI migration and tracking. The full-service solution is our most robust. Not only does it provide easy-to-use software, but a team of compliance analysts to help migrate, review, and correct your COIs. Contact us today to learn more about migrating your COIs to our platform.