Leading specialist CPRI broker BPL Global has today published its annual Market Insight report revealing a snapshot of claims, emerging areas of demand and appetite and how the industry has fared over the past twelve months. Given its 20% share of the brokered market, BPL Global delves into its own portfolio statistics in the report […]
Surety
Due to the increased acceptance of surety as collateral in recent years, insurers have, in parallel, expanded their surety offerings beyond the traditional construction sector to respond to the increased demand for issuing capacity from both financial institutions and corporates. At BPL Global, we believe the surety market has key synergies with CPRI and should be an important consideration for our clients in managing their obligations and/or credit exposure to third parties
What is surety?
A surety bond is a legally-binding guarantee that a company will carry out its obligations to a third party, involving:
- The Principal (who requests the bond to be issued, i.e. a BPL Global client)
- The Beneficiary (who benefits from the bond that can be called in the event of the Principal’s default on its contractual obligations); and
- The Surety (who issues the bond, i.e. an insurance company)
While insurance transfers the risk of financial loss to an insurance company, with a surety bond, the Principal remains financially responsible for any loss to the Surety which guarantees the Beneficiary that the obligation will be honoured.
Our experience and expertise
Surety for banks and financial institutions
Working with the surety market is becoming increasingly commonplace among banks and financial institutions, as it enables them to:
- Ensure risk mitigation remains confidential;
- Meet customer capacity requirements and maintain relationships;
- Diversify risk distribution channels to insurance companies which have credit risk profiles that are not correlated to those of banks;
- Stay in control during the default and recovery process; and
- Potentially achieve capital relief (depending on the jurisdiction).
Given the strong credit rating of surety providers, this distribution tool can provide robust risk protection with the additional potential for significant capital efficiencies relative to the underlying exposures depending on the prevailing regulatory environment.
World Leading Expertise
Thanks to favourable developments in the surety market, we are now encouraging our diverse international client base to consider sureties for certain risks and exposures.
While the CPRI market has been insuring banks for over 25 years, the surety market has historically viewed banks as competitors. However, as corporate clients have sought additional capacity in multiple jurisdictions, the surety market has increasingly realised that partnering with fronting banks can help provide a global client solution.
Surety for corporates
With surety becoming more widely accepted as a form of collateral, corporates are now considering diversifying away from their traditional use of bank issued guarantees and standby letters of credit (SBLC) to an increased use of surety. The main advantage is that the surety market can provide corporates with an alternative to bank capacity and at a competitive price.
By shifting some of their guaranteeing / bonding requirements into the surety market, a corporate can free up its working capital and bank lines thereby enabling greater headroom for growth and opportunity.
Why work with us
BPL can play a key role in assisting banks and financial institutions in their distribution strategy to sureties. We can also structure facilities for corporate clients with the surety market. In the event that local regulations or counterparty requirements demand an SBLC or bank guarantee to be in place in certain jurisdictions, BPL Global can help source a local banking partner to front such a facility.
In the news
The current CEO of BPL Singapore, Harry McIndoe, is set to return to London to take on a new management role within the BPL Global Group following nine years in Asia, with Hayley Ek assuming responsibility over the coming months. McIndoe helped establish BPL’s Singapore office in 2012 and has been instrumental in both growing […]
With BPL New York LLC now established as one of its wholly-owned subsidiaries, BPL Global – the leading CPRI broker – is delighted to announce the appointment of Gabe Mansky and Andrea Friedman. Mansky and Friedman, who both join BPL New York from Arthur J. Gallagher, will be primarily focused on Israeli-based corporations and banks, […]
BPL Global and EQUA Specialty Risk Partners Corporation (EQUA) have today announced that they have signed a partnership agreement, effective immediately. Based in Canada, EQUA is a risk management and insurance brokerage firm offering customized solutions for specialty lines and will bolster specialist credit and political risk insurance (CPRI) broker BPL Global’s worldwide reach and […]
Lloyd’s is proposing to transfer certain EEA insurance policies to Lloyd’s Brussels. The proposed transfer will not change terms and conditions of any policy, except that Lloyd’s Brussels will become the insurer and Data Controller in respect of the transferred policies. Further information about the proposal (including whether it could affect your pre-transfer position), which […]
Now that just over two months have passed since the World Health Organization declared Covid-19 a global pandemic, we have produced an analysis of how the crisis is affecting credit and political risk insurance (CPRI) and the response of our market thus far. Read it here.
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