A surety bond term is important to know and to understand your options no matter the type of surety bonds you may need for a job. The length of time a surety has before expiring is essential to keep in mind when bidding on a job or after you’ve won the bid so that you can make proper arrangements, as an expired surety may cause serious issues.
Whether you’re newer to the contractor business or a seasoned professional, the information below can help provide you with smooth sailing during your job and ensure you can keep costs down through planning ahead.
Surety Bond Duration
After you go through the process to gain a surety bond, the surety bond term will be set, and how long till it expires depends on when it was issued to you. Surety bonds, at a minimum, usually last one year, but it isn’t uncommon for them to last several years from the issuing date. Also, if you’re being issued several types of surety bonds, they may not all expire at the same time. Your performance bond and payment bonds could expire months, if not years apart.
Is a Surety Bond Renewable?
Here is where the life of a surety bond can get a bit murky. Whether or not you are able to renew the surety bond depends on several factors, including the type of surety bond and whether the obligee requires you to renew the bond at all. If the bond isn’t renewable you will have to go through the bonding process again from the surety company that issued it to you. It’s important to keep in mind that some surety bonds cannot be canceled but instead are released by the obligee.
In most cases a surety bond is renewable, but it is better to be prepared for if it isn’t.
Renewable Bonding Process
If you are able to renew your surety bonds or bond, you’ll be happy to know it’s a fairly easy process and you’ll likely be notified of when to do so. The surety company will conduct a risk analysis and calculate the premium of the new bond. They’ll go over whether the bond will likely be claimed against, much like in the initial bonding process, and make a determination based on your experience, internal financial records, the surety bond types you’re seeking, your credit history, and other similar factors.
If the surety provider finds that they are willing to renew your bond, you’ll be able to pay the premium to have the bond term extended and issued a Continuation Certificate to the obligee. You may have been issued a surety bond that is considered as “Continuous Until Cancelled,” which is important to note as the obligee may be the one who needs to cancel it.
If you fail to renew your surety bond or respond to the renewal notice, you may have to begin the bonding process all over again before continuing with any work on the construction job for which you were bonded.
Surety Bond Expert to Get Renewed
How long bonds last, as you can see, depends on a few factors and luckily, most are renewable. This process can be prepared for and navigated easily by partnering with a company that has extensive experience looking ahead sureties, being able to advise a contractor on the best moves forward to escape any bumps in the road that may occur. The soundest way to do this is to work with a surety specialist.
We at CSBA have experience working with surety providers and contractors every step of the way, having access to programs and California sureties that other surety agents don’t due to the exclusive nature of our business: we only focus on surety bonds for California contractors. Whether you’re a newer contractor or have been in the business for some time, we at CSBA are prepared to guide you through increasing your bonding capacity, gaining the types of surety bonds you need for the bids you want to win, and ensuring your surety bond is renewed.
We encourage you to align with a company that not only knows how to look ahead, but whose expertise is entirely what you need.
