On September 4th, 2018, the Small Business Administration announced its decision to decrease the fees associated with the SBA Surety Bond Guarantee Program (SBG). The fee amendment is the first adjustment in over twelve years. The SBA hope that the cost savings will be passed along to the small, emerging contractor and per Peter C. Gibbs, Acting Director of the Office of Surety Guarantees, “will incentivize surety companies and their agents to increase support for small businesses in the marketplace.” Further, per the SBA’s release, “The Surety Bond Guarantee (SBG) program is reducing the surety fee from twenty six percent to twenty percent of the gross performance bond premium charged to the small businesses, and reducing its contractor fee from $7.29 per thousand dollars of the contract amount to $6.00 per thousand.”

With the purpose to support the growth of small, emerging and minority contractors that may posses limited capacity and financial strength, and to increase the opportunities available to those contractors in federal contracting, the Small Business Administration created the SBA Surety Bond Guarantee (SBG) program. Under the program, the SBA indemnifies a surety company for a specific percentage of a loss due to a surety bond claim under a bid bond, performance bond and/or payment bond. Surety companies are more likely to offer capacity to a contractor that would not ordinarily meet the surety’s minimum standards for qualification. The Office of Surety Guarantees (OSG) offers access to the program through authorized surety agents.

National performance bond leader, Surety One, Inc. is a SBA approved underwriter of the Bond Guarantee Program. We are a surety-focused general agency licensed in all fifty states, Puerto Rico, U.S. Virgin Islands, Canada and Dominican Republic. Call (800) 373-2804, email Underwriting@SuretyOne.com click the instant message icon on our website at https://SuretyOne.com for more information about a performance bond guaranteed by the SBA or any surety bonding need.

Interested in learning more about contract surety bonds? Visit our learn page at PeformanceBond.com.