Subdivision Bonds and Their Role in Development Subdivision bonds are surety bonds required by local governments (cities, counties, public agencies) from property owners or developers during subdivision development. Also known as site improvement bonds, improvement performance bonds, and improvement payment bonds, they guarantee that the developer or property owner (the principal) will finance and complete all
Understanding Subdivision Bond Costs Read More »
Join Dan Huckabay, President of Commercial Surety Bond Agency, and Will Pfanmiller from Amerisure Surety for an insightful “behind the scenes” look at surety underwriting. This video reveals what might surprise most contractors about how underwriters truly focus when evaluating a bond program. In this discussion, Will Pfanmiller, an underwriter with nearly 20 years of
Behind the Scenes with a Surety Underwriter Read More »
We hear from contractors all the time that are unsure of whether their bonds will get approved or how long it will take. This uncertainty makes it tough to plan or run your business, but many contractors tolerate it because they don’t know what is “normal” or what they should expect. This article will shed
Delays with Bond Approvals: The Causes and Cures Read More »
Every once in a while, a project owner or general contractor will take a long time to award a project. If the project award drags on, this uncertainty can leave the contractor that bid the work in a tough spot for several reasons. The contractor may not want to bid other work in fear of
Understanding Bid Bond Expiration: How Long Are They Valid? Read More »
In California there are approximately 110 Native American Tribes, so it isn’t surprising there is a lot of Tribal work opportunities for contractors. While Tribal Nations can be great owners to work for, there are some unique risks that contractors need to be aware of. We will address the risks most important to surety companies
Tribal Work Risks and Considerations Read More »
What if the surety market changed overnight, and it became much harder to get bid, performance, and payment bonds? It’s not something most contractors think about, because the surety market has been relatively stable for the past 20 years. That can make it easy to take for granted that it will always be that way.
Potential Changes in the Surety Industry Read More »
We are asked often for our opinion about where the construction market and general economy stand, and it’s part of the reason we came up with this report. What’s interesting about this year is our answer really depends on which part of the market we are addressing. This inspired the title for this year’s report
2024 Construction Market Outlook Read More »
California tends to have a lot of very large projects, and with very large projects often comes significant liquidated damages. Surety companies generally consider liquidated damages greater than $5,000 per day to be fairly significant, but we see many large projects that have LD’s of $10,000 to $30,000 per day, which creates significantly more exposure
Limiting Exposure to Liquidated Damages Read More »
The definition of “Risk” is the chance of loss, and in construction this can apply to many areas. I’m going to focus on financial loss on a single projection or financial loss to the company as a whole. When discussing a “chance of loss”, we are really talking about probabilities. The probabilities or “odds” in
We created this snapshot to give you a quick idea of how the California construction market is doing halfway through the year. We use data from Construct Connect, one of the largest project data sources in the United States, along with our proprietary data from our more than 300 contractor customers in California. While there
2024 Midyear California Construction Market Snapshot Read More »
