Q&A with Todd LoehnertPresident of
A 24-year industry veteran, Todd Loehnert is currently serving as president of the National Association of Surety Bond Producers. Here Loehnert talks about the state of the surety industry, legislative initiatives and how technology will help reshape the surety industry.
The Consumer's Guide to Surety BondsRead our ultimate consumer guide to Surety Bonds, the most straight-forward explanation of surety bonds online.
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Entrepreneurs and small business owners often forget one key ingredient when launching their startup: Surety Bonds.
Learn everything you need to know right here! In the first installment of our audio Q-and-A series, we talk with Chris Cheatham, a Washington, D.C., construction attorney and an expert in the green building issues facing the surety industry.
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2,750 BC: Earliest known suretyship contract written on a Mesopotamian tablet. According to the contract, a farmer could not take care of his fields because he was drafted into the king’s army, so another farmer offered to work the fields. The two agreed to split the profit evenly. A local merchant served as the world’s first known surety by guaranteeing that the second farmer would keep his word.
1792-1750 BC: Surteyship first addressed in a written legal code–the Code of Hammurabi
670 BC: Age of the oldest surviving written surety contract
150 AD: Roman Empire developed first laws about surety
1837: William L Haskins proposed the first surety company in America–the New York Gurantee Company. (Tasker, Murphy & Schwartzkopf)
1840: The first successful corporate surety, Guaranty Society of London, founded (Tasker, Murphy & Schwartzkopf)
1853: New York enacted first law allowing establishment of corporate surety firms (Tasker, Murphy & Schwartzkopf)
1865: Fidelity Insurance Company became first U.S. corporate surety company (NYT)
1884: American Surety Company incorporated in New York and becomes first U.S. company committed to surety underwriting
1894: Congress passed the Heard Act, requiring surety bonds on all federally funded projects
1898: U.S. Supreme Court heard American Surety Co. v. Pauly, its first surety case
1908: Fourteen corporate sureties formed the Surety Association of America (surety.org)
1917: The victorious defendants of the Venner v. New York Central Railroad Company et al. Supreme Court case collected a $50,000 surety bond in legal fees from the plaintiff (NYT)
1930: First known surety bond against suicide written
1931: Handbook of the Law of Suretyship and Guaranty written to clarify fulfillment of sureties
1935: Miller Act passed requiring public work contracts exceeding $100,000 to obtain performance bonds. It also mandated payment protection for contracts exceeding $25,000.
1938: American Surety Company and New York Casualty Company develop a new “Discovery Bond,” which protects businesses against old acts of employee dishonesty yet to be discovered (NYT)
1942: National Association of Surety Bond Producers founded to represent the needs and interests of surety agents and brokers http://www.nasbp.org
1971: Federal Trade Commission entered the insurance field for the first time by challenging the 1969 merger between the American General Insurance Company and Fidelity and Deposit Company of Baltimore. The merger had made American General the leading surety bond underwriter and the largest fidelity writer in the United States.
1991: Municipal Bond Investors Assurance Corporation began offering new surety bonds that covered deposits local governments put into banks. The First National Bank of Chicago was the first bank to use the bond. (NYT)
1993: Westpac Derivative Products, Ltd. became the first the first specialist in its music to use a surety bond. The bond was issued for $100 million and allowed the company to earn the highest triple-A ratings. (NYT)
2003: Surety insurance companies, including AIG and Travelers, pay an unheard of $900 million settlement to Enron customers following the crash (NYT)
