What are the steps to obtain bond insurance for a municipal bridge project?

Municipal projects, like a municipal bridge project, will always require a surety bond for the project. In the case of a bridge project, you'll likely have a portfolio of surety construction bonds for the project.

Here are the high level steps you'll have to follow. Keep in mind this will be slightly different depending on the city requiring the job.

Step 1: Get a Bid Bond or Pre-Approval

Most government jobs are listed on municipal job sites where they ask for bids.

In more bidding flows, you'll have to first get a construction bid bond. A bid bond is protection for the project owner, the municipality in this case, against receiving unrealistic low bids.

Low bids that contractors can't fulfill can cause the city a lot of money and ruin project timeframes.

During the bid bond process, you'll also get pre-approved for a performance surety bond. Most of the time this will include a payment bond.

In short, the performance bond is a guarantee that you will complete the project as agreed upon.

The payment bond is a guarantee that you will pay all subcontractors for work successfully completed.

Step 2: Submit Your Bid With Pre-Approval

Once you have your bid bond or at least a pre-approval for a performance bond for the project total, you can submit your bid.

If your bid is chosen, you might have to get even more construction surety bonds, but this will be different for every project.

Examples of other bonds you may have to get are:

• Maintenance bonds
• Retainage bond
• You might ask your subcontractors to get their own performance bond

It's possible before you do any of this you may have to get a license and contractor license bond in the county or city first.

Again all of these decisions will be made after you win the project.

Step 3: Complete the Project

When you complete the project, most of the time your bonds will expire and you're done with them.

In some cases, you may have to purchase a bond like a maintenance bond that ensures you'll fix any major issues with the bridge project.

Bottom line, it all starts with getting a bid bond or getting pre-approved for a performance bond that meets the scope of the project.

Request a free price quote and approval today or you can call a construction bond specialist at 1-800-608-9950 and get the process started.

There is no cost to get the pricing process started and we'll be able to quickly help you determine your bonding capacity.