Currently, the surety industry has a lot of excess capital. This translates into surety companies being fairly aggressive for good, solid contractors. Surety companies are willing to look at expanding the capacity of contractors and providing better terms to good accounts.
As a result of the soft surety market mentioned above, Goldleaf Surety recommends that good, solid construction companies have a surety checkup periodically to ensure that they are getting the best possible surety terms.
This is something that our account specialists look at annually for each account we handle. If we feel the current surety an account is set up with is not providing the best bond terms, we discuss it with the contractor and if the contractor is comfortable with Goldleaf checking other markets, we proceed. When is the last time your surety agent/broker discussed this with you?
Contractors should consider evaluating their surety relationship periodically to maximize capacity during a soft market. This is the best time to increase your bonding capacity versus trying to increase during a hard market.
Given the rapid changes in the surety industry, it is more critical now than ever for a contractor to be working with a professional surety specialist that brings value to your company and can facilitate the establishment and maintenance of a strong relationship with a surety. A professional surety specialist should keep you advised of what is currently happening within the surety industry, provide management with financial analysis to help the company maintain its bonding, and provide information helpful to management regarding new information that is impacting the construction sector. Is your current surety agent/broker providing these resources to you?
Goldleaf Surety Services focuses only on bonding. We deal with over 2 dozen different surety companies so we have a variety of companies to fit the needs of the different types of contractors out there. We are an active member of the National Association of Surety Bond Producers and are recognized by many surety companies as one of the top surety bond agents in the nation.
