It is time to shed light on another, not so typical, success story. We have said it before (and I am confident we will say again), sometimes success can involve bonds not getting written. To showcase this version of success, check out a recent bond request that we encountered below –
Our New Business Intake Manager, Kendyl Meseck, received a new bond request from an Agent. This Agent had a client that specialized in selling, setting, and finishing modular homes. Due to their line of work, they do not need bonding on a regular basis, but they had an upcoming project that they were required to post a couple of different types of bonds for.
Kendyl and our Underwriting Assistant, Katie Sommer Godfrey, worked together on this request. They identified that this project involved the client constructing a home and garage. Before the local Village would issue a land use permit, they were required to provide a performance bond, which would cover 125% of the estimated construction costs, specifically covering site improvement work. In addition to that bond, they were required to provide a Maintenance and Guarantee Bond equal to 100% of the project estimate and a $10,000 right-of-way bond.
The right-of-way bond was standard as they were required to hook up the storm drain. Our Commercial Bond Manager, Kristi Enevoldsen, was able to take care of this bond quickly for the client. But the performance bond was a different story…
The performance bond requirement for this project did not make sense to our team. This stemmed from the code referring to improvements, which included items such a sidewalks, drainage facilities, curbing, etc. Ultimately, we did not believe that the client would be completing this type of work during this project. After a lot of back and forth, many questions, and a lot of conversations, Goldleaf, the surety, and the village, worked together to determine that this project did not require a performance bond. With the client no longer needing to provide this bond, they were able to save on the bond premium, which ultimately would have come out to around $10,000. And to us, that is a major win!
While our team could have stopped asking questions and issued the bond, Goldleaf is invested in making sure we are writing the bonds that are truly needed. Success isn’t always as simple as getting bonds written. As you saw in the example above, not writing a bond for the client saved them thousands of dollars. If you believe that your Agency could benefit from this level of support on your client’s bond requests, give us a call today. We would love to provide this level of bonding solutions for your Agency’s long-term success.
