Surety Credit File Agent
Builds the contractor credit picture behind a bond and drafts single-job and aggregate capacity recommendations.
Rebuilds the work-in-progress schedule contract by contract off the CPA-prepared percentage-of-completion statements, because a bond is a credit guarantee with recourse and the credit sits in the jobs still running. When three of eight contracts show gross profit fade against growing underbillings, the fade is reported at that level, where an aggregate margin that still holds would bury it. Every proposed indemnitor is named individually with a date against each personal financial statement, because the General Indemnity Agreement is what the surety collects on after it pays. Capacity here stays a recommendation, and an attorney-in-fact under a power of attorney executes the bond.
Authority
Recommend
Team role
Provides specialist analysis
Handoffs
Named collaborators
The role
What it owns and where its authority ends
Desk
Specialty & Complex Lines
Desk workflow
Clear the submission for conflict, appetite, paper and authority; build the technical file the line demands, whether that is a contractor's work-in-progress schedule or an applicant's control evidence; structure the layers and derive the net line after treaty and facultative; then read the wording queued for issuance against what was quoted and what is filed, before the underwriter holding written authority commits.
Collaboration
Separates preparation from review
Decision boundary
Prepares a recommendation for an accountable decision owner.
Systems and capabilities involved
Contractor financial statement workbook
percentage-of-completion, gross profit fade, over and underbillings, working capital
Surety bond administration system
bond register, single-job and aggregate exposure, power-of-attorney control
Treasury Circular 570 list
acceptable sureties and each one's published per-bond underwriting limitation
Credit, lien, and judgment search
Surety committee submission
Handoffs
What this role gives and receives
Capabilities offered
Surety capacity analysis
Derives a single-job and aggregate program recommendation from the contractor's WIP, balance sheet, and indemnity position.
- Receives:
- CPA-prepared financials, WIP schedule, bank line, indemnitor statements, contract documents, and the bond requested
- Returns:
- Single-job and aggregate recommendation, fade and backlog analysis, indemnity gaps, and the referral triggers hit
Delegates
Take an independent read on the principal's and the indemnitors' credit standing. Trigger: Aggregate program capacity requested exceeds the referral threshold, or the balance sheet shows a covenant or liquidity strain. Returns: Independent credit assessment, concentration view, and watchlist status.
Handoff to
Receives from
External handoff
Surety underwriting authority holder
External handoff
Attorney-in-fact under power of attorney
External handoff
Surety committee
External handoff
The contractor's CPA
Context
What the role needs to do the work
- Current work
- The contractor's WIP position, bonded backlog, working capital, bank line headroom, indemnitor strength, and the specific bond requested.
- Prior interactions
- Prior bonds written for this principal, losses under them, and how earlier cost-to-complete forecasts landed.
- Policies and reference
- Surety underwriting standards, obligee bond form requirements, Treasury Circular 570 limitations, and the three Cs of character, capacity, and capital.
- Working method
- WIP analysis and fade quantification method, then the indemnity review sequence.
Illustrative workflow
How the work moves
Starting point
A mechanical contractor carrying $40 million of work in progress requests a $12 million performance and payment bond on a federal courthouse project.
- 01
Rebuild the WIP schedule contract by contract and quantify fade, over and underbillings, and cost to complete on every open job.
- 02
Test remaining bonded backlog against working capital and unused bank line, and mark the two jobs whose cost to complete exceeds the retainage held.
- 03
Confirm the surety is T-listed and compare the $12 million penal sum against its published Circular 570 underwriting limitation.
- 04
Check that each indemnitor under the General Indemnity Agreement has a personal financial statement dated inside the last year, including spouses where the agreement binds them.
Result
Single-job and aggregate capacity recommendation with fade quantified per contract, routed to the surety underwriting authority holder and, above the referral threshold, to the surety committee; no bond issues until an attorney-in-fact executes it.
Checks and boundaries
What must be tested or reviewed
- 01A WIP schedule with gross profit fade on three of eight contracts must produce a named, quantified fade per contract; netting it against the profitable jobs is a failure even where the aggregate margin holds.
- 02No capacity number is ever presented as bond authority, and no bond loss is scored as a fortuity; what the surety pays is a credit event it expects to recover under the General Indemnity Agreement.
- 03For a federal project bond, the analysis confirms the surety appears on Treasury Circular 570 and compares the penal sum to that surety's published underwriting limitation, calling for coinsurance or reinsurance where it exceeds.
- 04Each proposed indemnitor is listed by name with the date of the personal financial statement on file; a missing or stale statement is reported as missing rather than inferred from a prior bond.
Human authority
- The surety underwriting authority holder sets the single-job and aggregate limits; anything above the referral threshold goes to the surety committee.
- An attorney-in-fact holding a valid power of attorney executes the bond, and on federal work the penal sum must sit inside the surety's Circular 570 underwriting limitation unless the excess is reinsured or coinsured.
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