Ep. 571 A Year-End Meeting With Your Surety and Agent Could Make or Break Your 2026

Rancho Mesa's Alyssa Burley sits down with Surety Group Leader Andy Roberts to talk about why contractors should have a year-end meeting with their surety company and agent.

Show Notes: ⁠⁠Subscribe to Rancho Mesa's Newsletter⁠⁠.

Director/Host: ⁠⁠Alyssa Burley

Guest: ⁠⁠Andy Roberts⁠⁠

Producer/Editor: Jadyn Brandt

Music: "Home" by JHS Pedals, “Breaking News Intro” by nem0production

© Copyright 2025. Rancho Mesa Insurance Services, Inc. All rights reserved.

Transcript

Alyssa Burley: You're listening to Rancho Mesa’s StudioOne™ podcast, where each week we break down complex insurance and safety topics to help your business thrive. I'm your host, Alyssa Burley, and I'm joined by Andy Roberts, surety group leader with Rancho Mesa.

Today we're going to talk about why contractors should have a year-end meeting with their surety company and agent. Andy, welcome to the show.

Andy Roberts: Thank you guys for having me.

AB: Of course. So you recently wrote an article encouraging business owners to meet with their surety team at the end of the year. So why is it important for contractors to schedule a meeting with their surety company and agent early in the new year after completing year-end financials?

AR: So on the surety side of things, it's still a very personal business where we like to sit down in-person and with our underwriters and our contractors to really connect with them one-on-one, sit down and talk to them about their past performance, like what the financials look like, how the company performed last year, and then also get an idea of like what those financial metrics that look like and then also an idea of what is coming in the future.

AB: All right. So what kind of key financial indicators should contractors review with their surety team to determine bond capacity limits?

AR: So, you know, the major ones that we look at, you know, are like your working capital, which are, you know, current assets minus current liabilities. That gives you kind of an idea of, you know, you're able to pay your current obligations. We look at your profitability, like how that's the real key performance aspect of how things went for the last year. Like, you know, how much money did you make based on your sales? That's usually pretty important one. And then we also look at your equity. Like, is your equity position growing? Are you leaving your retained earnings in? Are you pulling money out of the company? What are you doing with that money? If you are pulling it out? You know, it's just it's a really important thing to kind of all sit down and we can do it one on one as opposed to a bunch of emails going back and forth of like, oh, why are they doing this? Why is this happening? It's like, let's sit down like okay you're taking this money out for taxes you're doing this for this like this money's staying in here's what the balance sheet's going to look like rolling into the new year. So it's just a good way to kind of hash things out and get everyone on the same page going forward.

You know kind of in addition to that too we'll also talk about like any changes you know like hey what's are you buying any new equipment are you using money for this what are your debt position's going to look like? And then we also want to go back through, like, the whip and talk about, hey, here's the bonded projects we did last year, like, how are they performing? Like, okay, we wrote this bond last summer. Like, how's it looking through six months? Like, is this going to be a good project for you? Or like, look at, hey, this project you show you're losing money on. Like, what's going on there? Is that trend going to continue or is it going to turn into profitable by the time it's completed? So, I don't know. There's a lot to cover in those meetings.

AB: Yeah, and sometimes it's easier just to have the conversation than to try to fill out a form or type it all out in an email. It's just easier to have that one-on-one.

AR: Yeah, and I feel like, too, you know, things can just get lost via email. Like, hey, the contractor might not answer the question the exact right way that the underwriter wanted to see it. And then we're trying to figure, you know, things just get mixed that way. So it's easier just to knock it out this way.

AB: Yeah, that makes sense. So beyond reviewing past performance, what future-oriented topics should be discussed during the year-end meeting with the surety company?

AR: So, you know, first and foremost, we usually like to talk to about, like, the limits that we have in place. So, like, they usually have a single and aggregate limit, which are for like their day-to-day bonding needs. You know, we're like, hey, are those still going to be sufficient for you, you know, for next year? What kind of projects do you see coming up? How's your backlog looking through for you know for this for 2026, what's it look like for 2027 like what do you need from us? Are your projects that you're looking to bond for next year going to be right on the same size that you're used to bonding or are you eyeing stuff that's double triple the size? Because we see that a lot right now just with you know material costs being higher and labor and everything like that contractor is getting a lot of bigger projects than they're used to. So it's nice to have that talk up front where you can talk to them and say, “Oh yeah, in the summer I have one that's coming that's twice as big than I've ever done before.” And so we can get ahead of it right then during that meeting and get everyone prepped and ready for when it's coming down the road. So it'll be a lot easier process to get approved.

AB: Yeah, there aren't any surprises at the last minute.

AR: Yeah. No one likes surprises. So it's good to be up front about them.

AB: All right. Well, Andy, if listeners have questions about their surety program, what's the best way to get in touch with you?

AR: So I can be reached at 619-937-0166 or at aroberts@RanchoMesa.com.

AB: All right. Well, Andy, thanks for joining me in StudioOne.

AR: Thank you guys for having me.

AB: Thanks for tuning in to our latest episode produced by StudioOne. If you enjoyed what you heard, please share this episode and subscribe. For more insights like this, visit us at RanchoMesa.com and subscribe to our weekly newsletter.