A surety application can be held up by normal issues. Financial statements can be out of date. Schedules of work in progress may not match the backlog of the contractor. The references of the contractor may be few and disorganized. Such problems may not be significant but they can delay the process of evaluating an application.
Surety brokers work to organize the data of contractors so that it can be submitted to a surety carrier. This is important since the approval of surety involves confidence in the abilities of the contractor to do bonded projects. An underwriter must see clearly the capacity, performance, management and commitment of the contractor.
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The problem that most contractors face is timing. When there is an urgent need for bonding, it is likely to come close to a deadline. Estimators and owners may be very busy with the bidding. In such a situation, the contractor might find himself looking for missing schedules or trying to make sense of poor notes in financial statements.
The advantage of independent brokers in this scenario is that they can help their clients organize themselves beforehand. They will have more organized financial packages, more comprehensive project lists, good explanations for anomalies and better communication with the carriers. It is just documentation but with a business impact.
As contractors grow, so does the documentation needs. A contractor who used to require a small bond may now require bigger limit or multiple bonds simultaneously. This change will call for more underwriting data. There may be more questions about cash flow, job concentration, subcontracting exposure and project performance of the contractor.
What independent brokers can do here is to prepare their clients to answer these questions in advance. They can find the weak points in a file and explain them to the client before submitting it. It does not guarantee success but it helps the contractor to be evaluated based on his whole story.
Buyers of services should know that surety qualification is a continuous process. Independent brokers can help when they take care of the documentation as a part of the account management. The contractors who maintain their documents are always ready to seize opportunities when they appear.