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Surety Bonds for Heavy Civil Engineering

Surety Bond Professionals is a family owned and operated bonding agency with over 30 years of experience. With access to a broad range of surety markets, our expert agents are ready to assist with all of your construction bond needs. What Do Civil Engineers Do? According to the U.S. Department of Labor, heavy and civil engineering is considered a subsector of the construction sector. The Occupational Outlook Handbook published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics describes the role of civil engineers as “[To] conceive, design, build, supervise, operate, construct and maintain infrastructure projects and systems in the public and private sector, including roads, buildings, airports, tunnels, dams, bridges, and systems for water supply and sewage treatment.” Their work is not normally performed on buildings but rather on infrastructure. IIJA and Heavy Civil Engineering The Infrastructure Improvement and Jobs Act (IIJA) was signed into law by President Biden on November 15, 2021. It authorized $1.2 trillion in funding for transportation and infrastructure projects, with $550 billion of that figure allocated for “new” investments and programs. The remainder is earmarked for repairs and upgrades to existing transportation and infrastructure systems. This level of funding creates unprecedented opportunities for heavy civil engineering...

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IIJA Buy America Regulations Explained

Surety Bond Professionals is a family owned and operated bonding agency with over 30 years of experience. With access to a broad range of surety markets, our expert agents are ready to assist with all of your construction bond needs. What is the Build America, Buy America Act? The Build America, Buy America Act is part of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), signed into law by President Biden on November 15, 2021. It set May 14, 2022, as the deadline for all federal agencies to make sure that the infrastructure projects they fund comply with the Build America, Buy America domestic preference requirements. In some cases, this means that the IIJA Buy America requirements will supersede earlier procurement guidelines. What Does “Domestic Preference Requirements” Mean? “Domestic preference” means that all construction materials used in IIJA-funded infrastructure projects must, with few exceptions, be made in the United States. The White House has clarified that to mean that at least the last two stages of the manufacturing process must occur in this country. IIJA domestic preference requirements apply only to construction materials. They do not apply to supplies or tools brought to a jobsite and removed before project completion...

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How Safety Records Can Affect Your Bond Capacity

Surety Bond Professionals is a family owned and operated bonding agency with over 30 years of experience. With access to a broad range of surety markets, our expert agents are ready to assist with all of your construction bond needs. What Is Bonding Capacity? The term “bond capacity” (also called bonding capacity) refers to the maximum amount of bond coverage a surety is willing to guarantee a contractor. There are two facets to bonding capacity: the maximum amount a surety will guarantee on a single construction project and the maximum amount a surety will guarantee altogether for multiple projects at the same time. These are referred to as single-job and aggregate bonding limits, respectively. Only active bonds count toward the limit. When the work is finished, or a bond expires without being renewed, the bond is closed out and no longer counts toward the contractor’s aggregate bonding capacity. Why Is Bonding Capacity Important? Bonding capacity is important because it puts an upper limit, or ceiling, on the number of projects and the size of the projects that a contractor can be bonded for concurrently. This may not be a major issue for contractors doing primarily smaller private projects, as...

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House Bill Set to Make Broadband Grants Nontaxable

Surety Bond Professionals is a family owned and operated bonding agency with over 30 years of experience. With access to a broad range of surety markets, our expert agents are ready to assist with all of your construction bond needs. What Is Broadband Internet? The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is the federal agency charged with regulating interstate and international communications via cable, radio, television, satellite, and wire. Its mission is to promote connectivity and make sure the communications market is healthy and competitive. The FCC defines broadband internet in terms of data transmission speed. To qualify as broadband, download speed must be at least 25 megabits (Mbps) per second and upload speed must be 3 Mbps or more. What Is the Digital Divide? Many areas of the United States are underserved when it comes to broadband internet. The government maintains a broadband deployment map that shows, by census block, the level of broadband coverage throughout the country. However, the map is based on self-reported data from Internet service providers (ISPs), and they consider a census block covered if even one or two homes in the block have broadband internet. The research arm of Broadband Now, a data aggregation company...

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Construction Market Forecast in 2023

Surety Bond Professionals is a family owned and operated bonding agency with over 30 years of experience. With access to a broad range of surety markets, our expert agents are ready to assist with all of your construction bond needs. The Economic Environment in 2023 Any construction market forecast is based on the current macroeconomic conditions for the economy as indicated by measures such as interest rates, inflation, unemployment, spending, and so on. While the entire economy operates in the same economic environment, different industries and industry sectors may fare better or worse than others. So, forecasts for specific construction markets require analysis of current events, trends, and the likely impact of anticipated future economic conditions on each market. Coming into 2023, the biggest concern for the U.S. economy was the possibility of recession—which occurs when there is a simultaneous decline in gross domestic product (GDP), employment, and investment. The fear was–and still is to some extent–that the interest rate increases made by the Federal Reserve Bank to curb inflation, which is the sign of an overheated economy, would put the brakes on spending to the point of recession. However, as of this writing, the Associated Builders & Contractors,...

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Bottlenecks in Supply Chains: The Construction Industry Explained

Surety Bond Professionals is a family owned and operated bonding agency with over 30 years of experience. With access to a broad range of surety markets, our expert agents are ready to assist with all of your construction bond needs. Supply Chain Disruptions When contractors estimate costs and bid on a project, they make certain assumptions about the lead times for certain materials and components. Availability, costs, and lead times all became far more difficult to predict during the global pandemic. Prior to that, bottlenecks in supply chains and disruptions tended to be limited to certain regions and were usually the result of extreme weather events and natural disasters, political instability and civil unrest, labor disputes, and so on. The supply chain disruptions that began in 2020 were not limited to individual countries or trade partners. Worldwide shutdowns intended to stop the spread of Covid-19 had the unintended effect of crippling international and domestic transportation of goods, including construction materials. Labor shortages, high fuel prices, natural disasters (such as Hurricane Ian in September 2022), and the war in Ukraine have had a devastating cumulative impact on construction supply chains. While it’s no longer common to see harbors clogged with...

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How to Upgrade Your Bonding Capacity from a Fast-Track Program to a Standard Program

Typically, contractors that require small and infrequent, or one-off performance bonds apply for a Fast-Track Program. This application process is quick and simple and does not require much financial or underwriting information. It is ideal for contractors that need construction bonds under $500,000. Approval is based primarily on the applicant’s credit score and a completed application can be approved by the surety company within a day. A Standard Bond Program, however, requires more complex financial information and cost systems from the contractor and takes more time for the surety to approve. So why would a contractor want to upgrade to a larger, more traditional Standard Bond Program? Firstly, the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act is anticipated to revitalize America’s infrastructure and drive significant job growth in the construction industry over the next few years. It will modernize and upgrade our roads, bridges, ports, and other key infrastructure assets desperately in need of repair. A Standard Program will enable a contractor to take on these larger government projects* which require construction bonds, thus procuring more work for their pipeline. Secondly, a contractor can save money by securing a lower bond rate. Fast-Track bonds are typically charged at a higher rate...

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Why More Women Are Joining the Construction Industry

Surety Bond Professionals is a family owned and operated bonding agency with over 30 years of experience. With access to a broad range of surety markets, our expert agents are ready to assist with all of your construction bond needs. Why Are Women Increasingly Seeking Employment in Construction? This question has a one-word answer: opportunity. More specifically, women are attracted by the range of career options, income potential, and opportunities for advancement in construction today. Additionally, societal attitudes toward women in traditionally male occupations have changed significantly in recent decades. Let’s take a closer look at these factors and how they have led to the current influx of women in the construction industry. Employment Opportunities With the billions of dollars the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) is pumping into the construction industry, a 2022 estimate places the 2023 demand for skilled workers in the construction trades at 590,000 in addition to the normal pace of hiring. The aging of the U.S. construction workforce and a decrease in the number of young people choosing a career in construction is making it hard for construction companies to recruit enough new workers. The number of construction workers between the ages of...

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Why Are Women Important in Construction?

Surety Bond Professionals is a family owned and operated bonding agency with over 30 years of experience. With access to a broad range of surety markets, our expert agents are ready to assist with all of your construction bond needs. The Construction Labor Shortage The current labor pool for construction jobs is too small to meet the demand for construction workers. With nearly twice as many job openings as people seeking employment in the construction industry, recruiting more women to meet that demand makes good sense simply from a numerical standpoint. It will take about 590,000 new construction workers to meet the demand anticipated for 2023. Women can certainly help to make up for the shortfall. Benefits of Increasing Gender Diversity in Construction The current labor shortage is only one of the reasons why it’s important to have more women in construction. There are other significant benefits. Creativity and Innovation Gender diversity adds another point of view to any discussion, which in turn increases creativity and innovation. Research has shown that groups that include women are better at collaborating and innovating than male-only groups. Effective Communication Nature has given women an advantage when it comes to communicating. Research reported...

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