2019 Contractors Bid Bonds: Plan Ahead for New Projects

Contractors are gearing up for the 2019 construction season. They are surveying the landscape; reviewing new infrastructure projects for opportunities.

It all starts with bid bonds, and the wise contractors have a surety bond program established long before they ever start bidding public work. Why spend the time and money estimating a job if you are unable to get the necessary bid, performance and payment bonds?

Bid bonds are most closely associated with the construction of roads, utilities, bridges or public buildings. However, almost any publicly funded contract (including construction & non-construction) requires bonding, so there’s a seemingly endless list of business trades that need bonds.  Once the bid is won, the contractor needs to know they can count on their surety partner to turn that bid bond into performance and payment bonds quickly.

Surety Support Services expertly handles virtually any bid bond even on short notice, and at no cost.  As Zach Bradley, President of Surety Support Service states, “The most unique thing about how we handle bid bonds is that we get them written with others can’t.” That is largely due to the years of experience dealing with difficult or hard to place contract bonds and bonds with unusual circumstances.

“There is a scenario when a bid bond could be approved but not a performance bond.  The surety is less comfortable writing a final bond if the contractor’s bid is more than 10% lower than the next lowest bidder,” Zach explains.  A large bid spread and/or the surety receiving deteriorating contractor financial information are a few reasons why the surety would write a bid bond but then hesitate with writing the final bonds. “The surety will likely ask for more information or have stricter terms, or they may refuse to write the final bonds altogether. After we verify with the surety that wrote the bid bond that they do not wish to write the final bonds, we roll up our sleeves and go to work exploring every possibility to help.  We welcome the challenge of providing those badly needed final bonds,” he continues.

The Bid Bond represents contractor pre-qualification, and that goes a long way towards building confidence with the project owner. When an owner receives a bid bond, they are receiving proof that an independent party (the surety) has vetted the business and deemed it to have the financial and professional capabilities of completing the project. It separates those contractors who have been prequalified (and are bondable) from those who have not. Contact Surety Support Service today for your next bid bond.

For more information contact:

Zach Bradley
zach@suretyss.com
866-385-7760