Past Features

Visit the office of Sean Cunningham, professional associate at ACE Surety in Philadelphia, and you’ll see the binder that he received at NASBP’s Level II Surety School sitting on his desk. “I refer to it at least five times a week, refreshing myself on what I learned there,” he said. “We covered all the fundamentals about the work in process, ...

Experienced and new producers can reap rewards from the Association’s membership network. A last minute bid bond misrouted by a courier can be a heart stopper for a client. When a producer doesn’t have an office in the same town where that client is working, it’s even more distressing. Fortunately, when the paperwork Susan Hecker’s customer needed didn’t arrive as ...

Bonding process considerations for bond producers and sureties. Public-Private Partnerships (P3s) continue to be a hot topic of discussion, and their use for delivering large, multifaceted infrastructure projects continues to grow in the United States. According to Aon Risk Solutions’ 2015 Surety Market Update and Forecast, there were five closed P3 deals in the U.S. in 2014, with a combined ...

Three attorneys who serve on the NASBP Attorney Advisory Council (AAC) delivered presentations at the NASBP Regional Meetings. The NASBP Attorney Advisory Council, formed this spring, is comprised of eight attorneys, with deep knowledge and experience in surety law, construction law, and/or government contracts. They serve as a resource team to NASBP and provide substantive content to articles, virtual seminars, ...

For parties engaged in litigation, court bonds are often a useful tool. Because there is such a variety of these bonds, it is often difficult to know the proper name and purpose of each of them. This article will provide a brief explanation of the primary types of court bonds that are available, along with a few useful tips for producers and ...

Fraud in the construction industry takes on many forms, from asset misappropriation to financial statement fraud. According to the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners’ 2014 Report to the Nations on Occupational Fraud and Abuse (RTTN), the average organization loses five percent of its revenues to occupational fraud. Factor in waste, abuse, and non-occupational fraud (fraud committed by those outside the ...

Here’s what surety professionals and their contractors should know When it comes to federal government contracting, compliance can be the last item that construction contractors want to address. It can be burdensome and time-consuming, and every dollar amount that a contractor devotes to compliance cuts into a contractor’s bottom line. Despite the arduous nature of compliance, however, the risks and ...

The lapse of a contractor’s construction license can be a big problem for its surety. A surety must heavily rely upon its principal to comply with applicable business requirements, including the qualification to do business in the jurisdiction of the project and a valid contractor’s license. However, a contractor’s license can be quickly suspended or revoked for failure to pay ...

For those who never had the opportunity to learn Latin or to attend law school (you may have been fortunate in both cases), the Latin maxim ignorantia juris non excusat can be translated to “ignorance of the law excuses not.” Code-based legal systems may use the Latin phrase ignorantia iuris nocet, which translates to “not knowing the law is harmful.” ...

This is our fourth issue of the Surety Bond Quarterly and the first spring issue. It is fitting that a spring issue focus on the importance  of surety advocacy, as spring is the season of renewal, where the cold, laconic days of winter are replaced with days of increasing light and warmth and the possibilities of new directions and actions ...