Surety Account Profile Template
What this is
A one-page summary of your surety program. Everything a person in your office needs to answer a bonding question without calling three people first: who your surety is, what your limits are, who can sign, and what expires when.
Your broker keeps a version of this internally. You should keep your own, because when your office manager leaves or your producer changes agencies, their copy walks out the door and yours does not.
When you use it
- A new office manager or controller starts and needs to run bonds on day one
- Someone asks "who is our surety?" and nobody in the building is certain
- Your contractor license bond is coming up for renewal
- Your letter of authority (the standing document from the surety stating your single-job and aggregate limits) is close to expiring
- You are shopping producers or agencies and need to state your program in one page
- An owner's prequalification portal asks for surety contact details
How to fill it in
Legal name is the legal name. Not the name on the truck. The bond has to be issued in the exact entity name on your contractor license and your contract. If your license says "Vasquez Bros Construction, Inc." and your contract says "Vasquez Brothers," that mismatch gets caught at closeout, not at issuance, and it is painful to fix then.
License bond is not the same as a contract bond. Your contractor license bond is the small statutory bond that lets you hold a license — in California, $25,000 for most licensees. It renews on its own schedule and it is often placed with a different carrier than your performance bonds. Track it separately or you will find out it lapsed when your license goes inactive.
Letter of authority (LOA) expiration is the single most useful date on this page. The LOA is what lets your producer issue a bond the same day without calling an underwriter. When it expires, everything slows down. Put the expiry date on this sheet and 60 days ahead of it on your calendar.
Fiscal year end drives the whole surety calendar. Your audited or reviewed statement is due to the surety roughly 90 to 120 days after year end, and your capacity gets re-set off it. If your year end is December 31, your capacity conversation happens in March or April, not November.
Signatory column matters. "Signatory?" means this person is authorized to sign bond requests and indemnity documents on the company's behalf. Be honest about it — listing four people who can sign when only two actually have authority is how unauthorized commitments get made.
Rate tiers are worth knowing. Sureties price by class of work, not one flat rate. The commission column is what your producer earns out of that premium. It is not a secret, it is on the bond execution report, and knowing it makes the annual conversation about service level a lot more concrete.
Ask your surety. Which rate tier does each of your typical job types fall into? A contractor doing both public street work and private tenant improvement may be priced on two different tiers, and moving a job between them changes the premium materially.
The template
SURETY ACCOUNT PROFILE
Last updated: ____________________ Updated by: ____________________ *(added)*
COMPANY
Legal name: ______________________________________
DBA, if applicable: ______________________________________
Mailing address: ______________________________________
______________________________________
Physical address (if different): ______________________________________ *(added)*
Federal Tax ID #: ______________________________________ *(added)*
Entity type (corp / LLC / LP / sole): ______________________________________ *(added)*
State(s) of incorporation: ______________________________________ *(added)*
LICENSES
Contractor license # (CSLB # in CA): ______________________________________
License classification(s): ______________________________________ *(added)*
Other state licenses (state / #): ______________________________________ *(added)*
License bond carrier: ______________________________________
License bond amount: $_____________________________________ *(added)*
License bond renewal date: ______________________________________
Is our surety producer the broker
of record for the license bond? [ ] Yes [ ] No
License bond policy/bond number: ______________________________________ *(added)*
PROFESSIONAL RELATIONSHIPS
Fiscal year end: ______________________________________
CPA firm / partner / phone: ______________________________________
Level of assurance (audit /
review / compilation): ______________________________________ *(added)*
Bank / officer / phone: ______________________________________
Line of credit amount & expiry: $__________________ / ________________ *(added)*
Insurance broker / contact / phone: ______________________________________
Attorney / firm / phone: ______________________________________ *(added)*
SURETY PROGRAM
Surety name: ______________________________________
Surety A.M. Best rating: ______________________________________ *(added)*
U.S. Treasury (Circular 570) listed? [ ] Yes [ ] No *(added)*
Admitted in state(s): ______________________________________ *(added)*
Producer / agency: ______________________________________ *(added)*
Letter of authority (LOA) on file? [ ] Yes [ ] No
LOA issue date: ______________________________________
LOA expiration date: ______________________________________
Single project limit: $_____________________________________ *(added)*
Aggregate capacity: $_____________________________________ *(added)*
General indemnity agreement (GIA)
signed — date: ______________________________________ *(added)*
Indemnitors named on the GIA: ______________________________________ *(added)*
Where executed bonds are filed: ______________________________________ *(added)*
Premium billing contact (ours): ______________________________________ *(added)*
Client contacts (your people)
| Full name | Title | Signatory? | Phone | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| [ ] Yes [ ] No | ||||
| [ ] Yes [ ] No | ||||
| [ ] Yes [ ] No | ||||
| [ ] Yes [ ] No | ||||
| [ ] Yes [ ] No |
Surety and producer contacts
| Full name | Title / role | Company | Phone | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Producer | ||||
| Account manager | ||||
| Underwriter | ||||
| Claims contact (added) | ||||
| Attorney-in-fact (added) |
Bond rates
| Rating tier / class of work | Rate structure | Commission % | Applies to |
|---|---|---|---|
Renewal and review calendar (added)
| Item | Date | Owner in our office |
|---|---|---|
| Fiscal year end | ||
| Year-end statement due to surety | ||
| Interim statement due | ||
| License bond renewal | ||
| LOA expiration | ||
| Annual surety meeting | ||
| Insurance renewals |
Notes and common mistakes
Keeping only one copy, in one person's email. Print it, keep it in the accounting binder, and keep the file somewhere two people can reach.
Letting it go stale. Review it every time your capacity changes, your LOA renews, or someone on either contact list leaves. A profile with a producer who moved agencies two years ago is worse than no profile, because someone will call the number on it during an emergency.
Confusing aggregate capacity with what is available. Aggregate capacity is the ceiling. Available capacity is the ceiling minus your bonded backlog. Record the ceiling here and track the running total in the bond register.
Writing down a rate instead of a rate structure. Most contract bond premiums are computed on a sliding scale — one rate on the first tranche of contract value, a lower rate above it. Write down the structure, not a single number, or your premium estimates will be wrong on large jobs. See bond costs and rates.
Watch out. The general indemnity agreement is usually signed once, at the start of the relationship, and never looked at again. It typically binds the company, the owners, and their spouses personally, and it does not expire when a shareholder leaves. If your ownership has changed since the date on this sheet, that is a conversation to have now rather than during a claim. See the GIA guide.