Find the Right Construction Surety Provider — Look for These 4 Value-Add Services

Construction worker on the phone looking at plans Construction worker on the phone looking at plans

Today’s construction market is highly competitive and full of challenges. From planning your backlog to controlling costs, your next moves impact the future of your business. The business insights and data you use to finalize those decisions can make all the difference.

When choosing the right  for your needs, it's important to evaluate the resources and tools that they offer beyond the traditional surety process to make the most of your investment. Some can provide access to market insights, proprietary data and other resources that can help you make better business decisions.

Here are four business-building services to look for when determining the right surety provider for your business:

  1. Benchmarking data. It can be difficult for a privately held company to assess where it stands against its competitors. Beyond simply issuing the bond, surety providers that can analyze customers’ businesses, provide guidance and share what they’ve learned, may be far more valuable to your business than providers who don’t offer extra support. Travelers Canada Surety leads the market in studying data from of construction customers. We? have the ability to analyze real data, gather insights from business performance and apply it to help you understand how your organization compares. With this complimentary service, known as Peer Group Analysis, Travelers provides customers with a benchmarking report that shows how their financial performance compares to similar contractors on over 30 key financial metrics. It can also include financial trending reports over the past five years.

    For customers who need a deeper dive into overhead costs, Travelers Canada Surety offers a . The results show a percentage breakdown of complete overhead costs that include items like salary and bonuses; marketing and business development; fleet vehicles; travel, meals and entertainment; and dues and subscriptions.

    When deployed strategically, we believe benchmarking data is an important tool that can help you run a more successful company over time.

  2. Consulting partnerships. Many noncompeting construction leaders learn from one another by sharing experiences and lessons, but it can be time-consuming and difficult to coordinate and facilitate information-sharing sessions. Look for a provider that can connect you with experienced consultants and other business leaders for easy access to coaching and learning opportunities.
    FBI offers facilitated CEO performance roundtables, where small groups of business executives from noncompeting construction companies convene to learn from one another's successes and failures. Construction leaders can use this valuable insight to help improve how they manage their businesses. FBI also offers business boot camps for emerging leaders focused on the business side of construction, as well as strategic planning, succession planning, leadership development, estate planning, conflict resolution and more.

  3. Market trends and insights. As spending on construction in the S. Canadian market ebbs and flows, construction firms may consider chasing bigger jobs and new contracting models, expanding into new geographies or pursuing new lines of work in order to maintain backlog and grow revenue. There are risks as well as opportunities in each of these options. By tapping into a surety provider like Travelers Canada Surety, construction businesses can leverage Travelers' industry knowledge and experience

  4. Exclusive access to valuable risk management resources. Surety customers may not realize that they can get access to important risk management content if they choose the right provider. Travelers Canada Surety offers customers access to relevant information on important and trending industry topics, including ,  design/build projects, joint ventures, and long-term warranties. Innovative ideas from Travelers Canada, like a risk-sharing product called , can help contractors mitigate the financial risk of a large project failure.

At Travelers Canada Surety, we are in the business of helping contractors succeed. And as a Travelers Canada Surety customer, you get access to a variety of value-added resources and tools designed to help you understand your market environment and help your business succeed.

Contact your surety broker or a Travelers Canada representative for more answers to your contract surety questions and to learn more about Travelers Canada Surety consultative services.