NASBP Resources Reminder

Every week, NASBP staff receives requests for assistance on various topics related to surety bonding. Often, NASBP already has addressed many of these topics through the work of committee volunteers and staff, resulting in letters, white papers, articles, presentations, and other materials and resources over the years. With so much produced, it can be challenging to remember all that is available. I cannot cover everything that has been produced in recent years or is relevant, but a concise rundown of some of the resources I find most interesting or helpful may be beneficial to jog memories and to position you to answer issues that may arise in your business efforts.

Sampling of Commercial Surety Resources

In terms of commercial surety specific materials, resources have been created over time, some of which you might not be aware of or have forgotten. The first place to look for commercial surety resource materials is on the NASBP learning portal (https://learn.nasbp.org/Commercial), which hosts many different materials, including recordings of NASBP Virtual Seminars featuring commercial surety subjects.

With the greater emphasis on privatization of services today, especially by local governments, one commercial surety resource may be particularly on point. The Commercial Surety Committee created a kit to aid bond producers in discussions with local elected leaders and governmental staff about use of bonding as performance security for outsourced, third-party vendor services. This kit, termed “A Resource Kit To Promote The Benefits Of Bonding To Public Entities,” contains materials to help you explain the function and necessity of bonding to local, or state employees, elected officials, and any other person responsible for spending taxpayer dollars. It includes, among other materials, a white paper discussing bonding for public entity outsourcing, a brochure on surety safeguards for third-party vendor contractors, and a sample performance bond form.

The Professional Development Committee currently is working on the development of an online course that will educate new bond department administrative staff about proper suretyship procedures. The Committee will be referencing and examining many NASBP resources to develop the course, including the NASBP Bond Execution Guide.

Sampling of Contract Surety Resources

On the contract surety side, NASBP has produced materials covering a broad gamut of subjects, spanning from the right way to verify bonds (“Always Verify Your Bond!”) to a white paper for obligees on the best practices for employing electronic bonding technologies, “Best Practices: Electronic Bonding Technologies.” There are a tremendous number of articles published in the NASBP Surety Bond Quarterly magazine that can be used to explain or to educate on surety subjects, and those articles are archived and available in the digital library at the Surety Bond Quarterly website. NASBP has produced explanatory materials on suretyship for project owners, design professionals, contractors, small construction businesses, lenders, and others. For example, NASBP developed the “answers to questions” series of publications: “Answers to 32 Questions Public and Private Owners Ask About Contract Bonding,” “Answers to 30 Questions Architects Ask About Contract Surety Bonding,” and “Answers to 51 Questions Small Contractors Ask About Bonding.”

Special efforts have been made to create tools to facilitate small contractor bonding awareness. The online Contractor Bonding Education and Mentoring Program (https://learn.nasbp.org/SFAA-NASBP-ContractorBondingEd), is an unparalleled resource to acquaint small construction business principals in the paths forward to achieve surety credit. Before that resource existed, the NASBP Small and Emerging Business Committee created the Bonding Awareness Toolkit (member login required), which is still available, to provide a “canned” set of templates and related materials for bond producers to use when undertaking bonding presentations to local contractor communities.

There is so much more. I have just scratched the surface of the many resource materials available to you. Please do not hesitate to reach out to a NASBP staff member or committee liaison if you are looking for specific resources or assistance. These resource materials are intended to facilitate your business success and to educate surety stakeholders, and we are here to help.