1/5/2010
Why do home inspectors need to be bonded?
A surety bond is a promise to be responsible for the debt, default, or failure of another. In most instances, the bonds are required to protect the public, whether it be from the negligence licensed professionals while protecting tax-payer dollars. The bond required by the state of Kansas is a license bond. License bonds guarantee that the principal (home inspector) will follow the terms of the license for which they filed. The bond protects citizens from damages stemming from the actions of the principal and require the principal to comply with all applicable laws.
Contact us today to get the application process started!
For additional information, please visit our page about the new bond requirement.
http://www.smithmanus.net/Pages/KS%20Home%20Inspectors.aspx 10/28/2009
Subdivision bonds, required by local authorities, require the builders, developers, and land owners to make changes and improvements to the subdivision property.
In the current economic climate, many sureties are avoiding these bonds due to the risk and you may be having difficulties finding a company that is willing to write these bonds. Here at Smith-Manus, we have developed unique relationships with our insurance company partners and this allows us to create very specialized and aggressive solutions to our clients bonding needs. It is essential to make sure you work with a company who has a deep understanding of this market - with our three decades of experience, our professionals can help you get the bonding capacity you need for your subdivision projects.
Call us today for help with your bonding needs!
(888) 612-6637
10/19/2009
Improved Terms & Conditions. Strong Relationships with industry-leading sureties afford Smith-Manus clients access to more favorable terms and conditions. Pricing is comparable to other bonding and financial assurance alternatives. Smith-Manus only utilizes collateral when relative to a specific risk, not as a blanket-underwriting requirement, freeing up valuable credit capacity.
Flexibility. Smith-Manus grows with your business. Smith-Manus can develop increased capacity to support expanded work programs, acquisitions and the overall growth of your company.
Personal Service. Smith-Manus is continually working to improve and develop the programs of its existing accounts. We understand the needs of your industry and build on long-term relationships with our clients.
Cutting-Edge Operational Software. By utilizing software specifically developed and updated to produce surety bonds, Smith-Manus handles complex accounts, some with several thousand bonds in place while managing hundreds of different forms.
Industry Presence. Smith-Manus maintains membership and actively participates in numerous industry specific professional associations. 10/13/2009
· Providing surety programs supporting many industries – construction, commercial, waste/environmental, and mining
· A surety bond-only agency with more than three decades of surety experience
· Writing traditional contract and miscellaneous surety, but focused on unusual guarantees, providing bonds to specialized industries
· Developed industry relationships that have introduced significant new surety capacity to the marketplace
· Partners with highly rated insurance companies focused on solving the problem of obtaining hard-to place surety bonds
· Program size: single bonds, up to $10 million (greater with reinsurance), with the flexibility to develop significant aggregate programs for qualified principals
· Common sense, risk-based underwriting approach
· Service oriented
· Available to write "one shot" bonds or entire programs 10/5/2009
Risk management for environmental service companies has never been an easy task. Many environmental service firms and contractors face the need for environmental surety bonds.
After many years of favorable conditions and stability, the surety market is tightening - so much so that many large and established contractors are having difficulty maintaining the bonding capacity they need for growth, while many small contractors are having problems qualifying for their first or next bond. Even traditional construction projects, (i.e., those not considered environmental projects per se) can face difficulties simply because there may be a minor environmental component in the scope of work. Companies involved with a small percentage of environmental work (as low as 10 percent) can be labeled as "environmental risks" by the surety companies, whether they like it or not - and whether or not they like the impact that label has in the surety marketplace.
The bottom line is that many traditional sureties don't have big appetites for environmental risks, nor do they have reinsurance for environmental guarantees.
9/23/2009
· Large contractors facing a dirt project with an environmental component (e.g., lead, PCB or other contaminants), where the existing surety is not interested in providing the bond
· Environmental consultants starting to do their own environmental remediation work (an acute problem for consultants without prior construction experience)
· Traditional contractors doing new landfill cell construction - perhaps not an environmental project at all, but perceived as such by the existing surety
· Utilities storing fly-ash (coal burning by-product) on site, requiring a closure bond
· Environmental remediation firms constrained by their current program limits and in need of extra bonding
capacity
· Manufacturing companies whose processes produce environmental by-products held on site in residual landfills
· Environmental firms seeking the flexibility to make insurance carrier selection independent of their surety relationships
· Principals with environmental guarantees utilizing irrevocable letters of credit or funding trust accounts with cash instead of surety bonds - bonds are a much better alternative 9/2/2009
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Are the current economic conditions, credit crunch, and stimulus package creating challenges (opportunities)?
The program we have established with our highly rated insurance company partner has developed a risk based approach to replacing letters of credit with surety bonds.
If your business can benefit from utilizing surety bonds to meet today's obligations and guarantees, call
Smith-Manus Surety Bonds today.
Contact Brook Smith, President
(800) 235-9347
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www.SmithManus.com
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| 8/24/2009
Feeling the credit crunch and considering additional surety bond capacity??
Contact Smith-Manus Today!!
(888) 612-6637
info@smithmanus.com
3/26/2009
ENR -- January 19, 2009 (pg. 14)
Author: Mary B. Powers
The Tennessee Valley Authority has had a second leak at an impoundment at a coal-fired powerplant, this time from a gypsum pond at its Widows Creek Fossil Plant in northeast Alabama. The incident prompted Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) to announce on Jan. 13 that she plans to seek federal regulation of coal-ash ponds across the U.S.
Shifting gypsum dislodged the cap covering a 30-in. pipe once used to drain water from the gypsum pond into an adjacent settling pond, says John Moulton, a TVA spokesman. Once the cap came off, water in the gypsum pond flowed into the settling pond, which then overflowed into Widows Creek that flows through the site, Moulton says. Gypsum ponds hold limestone spray from scrubbers that clean sulfur dioxide from coal-fired plant emissions. The 1,456-MW Widows Creek plant has wet-limestone scrubbers on two units. TVA reported to the Alabama Dept. of Environmental Management that the spill was about 10,000 gallons. It has placed booms in the creek to prevent material migration, and state officials are on-site to monitor spill effects. TVA will be required to remediate the area, and it is bolstering gypsum pond internal walls.
TVA says results of tests on water and soil samples show that the solid material released was well below what is considered hazardous and that the material contained coal ash, Moulton says. Electrostatic precipitators at one of Widows Creek plant units have not been working for some time, he says. The device removes fly ash from the coal plant's air emission stream.
But TVA has still come under fire from the Tennessee Dept. of Environment and Conservation after it discharged sediments behind a dam into the Ocoee River. The department on Jan. 9 issued it a notice of violation for discharging the mixture without a permit. TVA was told to stop the release immediately and submit by Jan. 22 a plan to restore affected portions of the river.
TVA says it released the sediment to reduce the level of the reservoir so it could make repairs to the dam. It completed an environmental assessment before releasing the sludge and did not need a permit, says Jim Allen, a TVA spokesman. But a spokeswoman for the state environmental agency disagrees noting that TVA "has a clear understanding of the nature of the sediment built up behind the Ocoee 3 dam as a result of site remediation."
TVA has come under fire since 5.4 million cu yd of wet ash flowed over 300 acres and into the Emory River when a retaining wall fell on Dec. 22 at its Kingston coal-fired plant near Knoxville, Tenn. (ENR 1/5 p. 12). Boxer said she will ask the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to regulate coal-ash ponds at the confirmation hearing of Lisa Jackson, President-elect Barack Obama's nominee to head the agency. Tom Kilgore, TVRs CEO, said at a U.S. Senate hearing on Jan. 8 he expected more federal oversight. EPA has not set federal waste standards for coal-ash storage or disposal beyond a required wastewater discharge permit.
On Jan. 13, Tennessee issued an order against TVA, requiring it to submit a cleanup plan for the Kingston spill and to obtain an independent assessment of the structural integrity of all its coal-ash impoundments in the state.
For additional information, please visit www.ENR.com
3/11/2009
Wall Street Journal December 11, 2008
By: Sarah Needleman
In October, an accountant at 321 Takeoff Inc. in New York became suspicious after an employee who normally filed weekly expense reports for around $80 began requesting $120.
When Alona Fromberg-Elkayam, the branding agency's president, approached the employee, she says she was met with flimsy excuses. She fired the employee, a midlevel designer.
In the wake of the recession, more businesses are facing a growing financial threat: employee theft. New research shows that employers are seeing an increase in internal crimes, ranging from fictitious sales transactions and illegal kickbacks to the theft of office equipment and retail products meant for sale to customers.
 Employers suspect that workers are pilfering from them to cope with financial difficulties at home or in anticipation of being laid off.
What's more, it's often the most trusted workers who are committing the thefts.
"In leaner financial times, people have a tendency to give in to temptation to commit criminal behavior," says Brian J. Mich, head of anticorruption compliance and investigations at BDO Consulting in New York.
At the same time, he says, "employers give additional attention to the bottom line, which results in more fraud being discovered. It's a little hard to tell which is the chicken or the egg."
About 20% of employers polled last month said workplace theft has become a moderate to very big problem recently, according to a survey from the Institute for Corporate Productivity Inc., in conjunction with HR.com.
The survey, to be released Thursday, polled managers and executives at 392 U.S. companies representing a range of sizes and industries. When asked if they had noticed a recent rise in monetary theft among employees, such as fraudulent transactions or missing cash, 18% said yes, 41% were unsure and the rest said they hadn't.
Further, 24% of respondents said they had detected an increase in stolen nonmonetary items, such as retail products and office supplies, while 43% were unsure and 33% hadn't.
In 2007, companies lost an average of $2.4 million to fraud, the majority of it by employees, up from $1.7 million in 2005, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP, which conducts biannual surveys of around 5,400 companies of all sizes world-wide.
Employers are hot targets for theft because workers "know their systems, controls and weaknesses, and they can bide their time waiting for the right opportunity," says Mark R. Doyle, president of Jack L. Haynes International Inc., a provider of workplace crime-prevention services based in Fruitland Park, Fla.
Click to read the full article.
Due to the recent recession, many companies are facing the new threat of theft from employees. A fidelity bond protects the company from financial loss sustained by dishonest acts committed by employees. It specifically protects the employer against theft, larceny, or embezzlement. In times like these, it can most often be the most trusted employees that are violating the trust of their employers; no one is safe.
If you are considering getting a fidelity bond to protect you and your company from such dishonest acts by your employees, please contact Smith-Manus. We can work with you to make sure you have the coverage you need. Please call us at (888) 612-6637 or email at info@smithmanus.com.
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