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Surety Bonds Vital Concern For New Businesses

Written by Scott Barnes on October 2, 2010.

With ever-increasing regulations across most industries, starting up an enterprise these days can be intimidating for those striking out on their own for the first time. Entrepreneurs and new business owners have a lot of legal hoops to jump through before they can open for business, and it’s common for them to misunderstand the purpose of some of the regulations.

One common misconception is the need for surety bonds, as many individuals understand them to be identical to insurance policies. They are actually more like a form of preventative credit as opposed to retroactive compensation. Unfortunately, a great number of entrepreneurs and new business owners are unaware of how exactly bonds work as they set out to establish a new enterprise.

Surety bonds act as key risk mitigation tools that protect both government and consumer interests. Federal, state, and local government agencies frequently require professionals working in many industries to get bonded before being issued a business license.

Surety providers issue various types of bonds to individuals and companies to guarantee the quality of the work they will do. In the bond’s legal language, the entity who gets bonded is the principal while the entity requiring the bond is the obligee. If the principal fails to fulfill the bond’s contractual terms in some way, the obligee can make a claim on the bond to recover compensation. If the individual or business is not able to compensate the harmed party, than the surety will be held accountable for resolving the situation.

Since sureties hope to avoid having any claims made on a bond, they complete thorough background checks of the principal’s financial history, credit score, and work record. Should the surety choose to issue a bond after reviewing the principal’s past performance, consumers can be assured of the enterprise’s probable reliability in the future.

Countless professionals get bonded every year to guarantee the quality of their work. Those who work in the construction industry utilize surety bonds multiple times each year. With every new project, contractors typically need to secure a bid bond, a performance bond, and a payment bond. The healthcare industry mandates the use of bonds for certain professionals by using:

  • healthcare professional bonds
  • patient trust bonds
  • DMEPOS (or Medicaid) bonds

Surety bonds are also big in the finance industry, as mortgage brokers, bankers, and collection agencies all secure bonds to protect their clients.

Getting yourself or your new business bonded might be necessary in order to operate legally. Even if it’s not, you can still choose to build a stronger business by taking advantage of the benefits surety bonds provide. Consumers and clients feel more confident when working with bonded entities, as they know a surety’s financial backing of the establishment defines it as a reliable enterprise that is dedicated to customer satisfaction.

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