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Surety Bonds Are A Simple Way to Cover Your Assets

With unemployment high, retirement numbers growing and more and more people chasing their dreams, new businesses a popping up everyday. Many of these new businesses offer speciality services that may sound ideal for a consumer. But because these companies are new, they have no researchable track record. The best way to protect yourself when dealing with these new businesses, is to make sure the company has a surety bond. Take for example my friend Jim. Jim is a fifty year old accountant who has been recently downsized. For the past 28 years, he has been a successful, reliable numbers cruncher. But ever since he was a teen, Jim has had a passion and a knack for electronics. After being downsized, Jim decided to pursue his passion. He registered his company, got a surety bond and took an ad in the local newspaper.

Why Information Technology Professionals Need Business Insurance Protection

Is liability insurance important even if you’re an IT professional? Whatever kind of business you go into it is very important to have insurance plans. If you are a computer technician you should make sure you purchase computer technician insurance so you are covered if something happens as you work. Today, we have a world that is complex, quick, and sometimes hazardous. You’d like to have liability insurance for the just in case, the hidden or the accidental side of the business end. You wouldn’t think having an identity could cause any harm, but today, you have a very big problem with identity, called identity theft that can bankrupt you over-night. But what is liability insurance?

General liability insurance is covers damage , bodily damage, property damage, and medical coverage for a person who gets hurt on your property. Contractual liability, is very important to get in the IT, industry for it covers premise-lease, elevators, railroad deliveries or side track agreement, and license agreements for easements. Liability insurance compliments your technology professional liability insurance. If you’re an inventor and loves to tinker you will need the liability insurance for your safety as well as peace of mind. Check with your trusted insurance agent for all the different liability coverages for our State which are tax deductible too!

Been wondering what surety bonds are?

Being a twenty-something woman in today’s society one would assume that I would know the answer. However like many people I am actually quite in the dark when it comes to this topic. So, what are surety bonds? After a bit of research I compiled the following information. A surety bond is used in several different ways, but there is a basic formula for any situation. It is comprised of three parts; the principle, obligee, and surety. The first party, the principle, is a person or organization being secured against default. The second party, the obligee, is a person or organization who is owed either money or labor. This is where the third party, the surety, comes into play. The surety is a person or organization who promises to pay a certain amount if the “principle” defaults. For example, if after hiring a contractor he does not complete the job, providing he is bonded, one could get a portion of the moneys paid reimbursed. In this situation the contractor would be the principle, the person who hired the contractor would be the obligee, and the company bonding the contractor would be the surety. To answer the question “What are surety bonds?”, surety bonds are a guarantee that works in favor of the customer to ensure that an agreed upon service will be performed or product will be received.

How To Qualify For A Higher Surety Bond

If you are thinking about advertising for jobs that are for more money than you have been paid to perform, you will first need to get higher surety bonds than you currently have. You may already have a surety bond. But if your bond is only good to cover projects that have a contract value of less than 50,000 dollars, you will need to ask your insurance broker for a higher bond. The higher the bond, the more assets you will have to show. A good way to increase your business bond able value is to build cash in your company’s account or to list real estate that is bought as company assets. The more you and your company have as assets whether in cash or in real estate or both, the higher up you will be able to go in getting jobs that go for bigger contracts than you have been used to getting.

Product Liability Insurance – Because not everyone has common sense!

There is no question about it: If you make or distribute a product, you must have product business liability insurance. You may feel that it is unlikely that your product might every hurt someone, or their property, and that there is no chance of a defect in your product. However, product liability insurance protects you from an element you can’t control: how people use your product. You can, in fact, be sued if someone is injured using your product in a way it was not intended, if you did not warn against that specific usage in your packaging. Take for example the “cat in the microwave” urban legend. This is a story in which a woman put her cat in the microwave in order to dry it off. The cat, of course, did not survive this. The story takes a wackier twist when she then sues the microwave company for not warning her that you should not use a microwave in this capacity; and she won! While this is a ridiculous tale, it is thought by many to be true, simply because that is exactly how product liability works. You simply cannot rely on the common sense of the general public.

Are surety bonds used in the construction industry?

Surety bonds are frequently used in the construction industry with a surety bond for the construction contract being the most obvious. A surety bond for subcontractor payments called a contractor bonds may also be required. The other class of surety bonds is called commercial bonds; these bonds are for industries and services which do not have a contract based business mode. Examples of commercial bonds include: notary bonds, lottery bonds, janitorial service bonds, insurance broker bonds, telemarketing bond, etc. Local and State governments require businesses to obtain the appropriate commercial surety bonds in order to conduct business. Commercial bonds are typically a permit or license bonds. These differ from professional licensures which provide a level of assurance against fraud and misconduct of professional service providers.Similar to the surety bonds for contracts, the commercial bond issuer has the responsibility to settle disputes between the principal party and the customer. The business model is similar. The bond issuer provides surety instruments in exchange for a premium which is paid on a regular basis.

Why You Should Ask If Your Contractor Has A Surety Bond

When you need something fixed, do you just point and pick one out of the local yellow pages book? If you make a few calls, be sure to ask if your hired helper or company has a surety bond. Doing this is one step you can take to pre-qualify the person or company that will do your repairs or work. In order to be bonded and get their surety bond, the person or business must provide proof of good credit, trustworthiness, good financial reports, and that they are reliable. It will provide some protection to the consumer against poor workmanship, fraud, shoddy products and non-performance.

Surety Bonds Provide Peace of Mind As a Consumer

One should have the peace of mind knowing that service or product they have paid for is delivered to the utmost satisfaction. However, sometimes this it not the case and people are defrauded by a business because they do not deliver what was agreed upon. With this said, is there any form of protection for the customer? The answer is in surety bonds. These bonds are can be obtained by businesses as a way to completely protect the customer from any form of fraud. When a consumer agrees upon a service or product from a company that has a surety bond financial policy, they can be assured they will receive what was paid for.

For example, should someone pay in advance for a service and the company goes out of business, the consumer can file a claim against the surety bond provider. This in turn will allow the customer to be fully covered for their losses. Not only is this a fantastic way to protect valuable customers but is a great way for businesses to market themselves as being fully reliable. Knowing a company has a surety bond will also allow the customer to know that the business has impeccable financial history giving them even more security in using their product or services.

Opening Up An Umbrella Insurance Policy

What, exactly, is an umbrella policy? Just like the name of the accessory it describes, an umbrella policy provides additional protection over and above basic homeowner’s and/or auto policies. So, for example, if a person has an automobile policy that has policy limits of $100,000, an umbrella policy can be purchased that adds an additional one million dollars of coverage(or more) on top of that auto policy.

Why buy one? Just read the Web, the newspapers, or watch TV. Judgments, that’s why. A simple slip and fall at a home can mean hundreds of thousands in dollars of liability for a homeowner; a car accident with serious injuries to one or more can be equally, if not more costly, for the driver at fault. What the umbrella policy does is protect whatever assets a person may have beyond the limits of the particular policy. It is insurance on top of insurance, so that personal assets are not at risk if the costs paying a claim exceed the underlying policy limits.

When obtaining Georgia insurance quotes, always ask about the cost of an umbrella policy. Depending on how much additional coverage you want and the particular insurance company, the cost of an umbrella can be as little as $150 or so. You’ll get a better rate overall if you bundle your homeowner, auto, and umbrella policies with one insurance company.

Most companies will offer umbrella policies in connection with automobile coverage. Even in these tough economic times where every dollar counts, umbrella coverage is definitely something to consider when buying insurance. The cost of an umbrella policy is minimal to the peace of mind it provides. You hope that you never have to make a claim on such a policy, but you’ll sleep better at night, knowing that it’s there to protect you and your assets, if and when you need it. It is the ultimate protection against that rainy day.

Surety Bonds, Required for Some Types of Jobs

A surety bond, such as an MVD bond, is a guarantee. What is being guaranteed depends on what is written on the bond. Surety bonds are a form of credit not insurance. The surety is the insuring party. The obligee is the party for whom the work is being done and the principal will be performing the contractual obligation.

Today to complete a project for the federal, state or local governments surety bonds are required. They are issued on employees in jewelry stores to make sure they do no abscond with the diamonds. Cleaning services have their employees bonded which is also a form of surety bond.

The concept of surety bonds can take many names. Their tradition goes back hundreds of years at least. An example of a type of bond of this nature is the king of a country getting a recommendation from a nobleman on a new young worker. The nobleman will make a guarantee to the king in a form of a bond, should the job not be done or done incorrectly.

The surety company is like a co-signer on a loan, therefore, the surety company is careful who it insures. Naturally, there is an interest rate charged on the surety bond.

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