It reads the certificate the way the paid product does: insurer, policy number, named insured, certificate holder, auto liability limit, cargo limit, general liability limit, and the effective and expiration dates. Each limit is then checked against the minimums you set (defaults: $1,000,000 auto liability, $100,000 cargo), and you get a warning if the certificate is expired or expiring soon.

No. The file is processed in memory to extract the fields and immediately discarded — it is never written to storage or a database, and the extracted values aren't kept either. The one exception is opt-in: if you choose to save the carrier to a dashboard or get an expiry reminder, we store only your email address, the USDOT number you enter, and the certificate's expiration date — nothing else from the document. If you don't finish signing up, we send at most one reminder email before that expiration date. Beyond that, nothing persists unless you create an account and use the full product, where documents are stored privately as part of your carrier records.

PDF, PNG, JPG, or WebP, up to 10 MB. A clean scan or the original PDF works best — the reader flags any field it isn't confident about so you know what to verify by eye.

No. It reads what the certificate says — it cannot tell you whether the policy is actually in force or was altered. A COI is not proof of coverage; for anything that matters, verify with the issuing agent. Draylo's full product adds cross-checks against the carrier's FMCSA insurance filings to catch certificate-vs-filing mismatches.