The surety market is traditionally a local business based on know-how of the local market. However, with increasing globalization, large surety players are setting up operations in developing markets such as Latin America, or surety markets in certain countries are dominated by banks for instance, Australia. One of the major challenge faced by surety companies is to acquire the knowledge on local political and regulatory landscape. Global companies, however, have the capacity to hire professional local underwriters to compete in the market. The U.S. Small Business Administration’s Surety Bond Guarantee Program in collaboration from the surety industry, helps small construction companies in procuring requisite bonds on federal, state, local, and commercial construction projects and on service and supply contracts and subcontracts. This helps small and emerging contractors with opportunities, particularly in public sector construction. Mexico government announced a 2014-18 National Infrastructure Plan (Programa Nacional de Infraestructura, PNI) identifying six strategic priorities including energy; water; health; transport and communications; urban development; and tourism. This estimated value of the plan is US$ 464 Mn. However, his amount reveals only the public sector funding and does not include additional resources that will be organized through PPPs and other mechanisms. Such investments is infrastructure is anticipated to bolster the Mexico construction industry thus, propelling Surety market
TRAVELERS, LIBERTY MUTUAL INSURANCE, CNA INSURANCE, CHUBB, AND THE HARTFORD – PROMINENT MARKET PARTICIPANTS IN SURETY MARKET
Travelers, Liberty Mutual Insurance, CNA Insurance, Chubb, and The Hartford are some of the key market players operating in the global surety market. The listing of key players is derived by considering multiple factors such as overall revenue, current surety bond product portfolio, geographical reach, new product launches, market initiatives, investment in technology upgradation, mergers & acquisitions and other market related activities. There are various other notable players in the global surety market ecosystem such as Crum & Forster, American Financial Group, HCC Insurance Holdings, Inc., AmTrust Financial Services, Inc., and IFIC Security Group which are profiled in this report. In 2019, Liberty Mutual Insurance Company entered into an agreement to acquire the global surety and credit reinsurance operations of AmTrust Financial Services, including AmTrust Surety, AmTrust Insurance Spain, Nationale Borg and Nationale Borg Reinsurance.
Most of the market initiatives were observed in North American region, which have a high potential of surety market-related products and services. Few of the important market initiatives and product developments from the industry are mentioned below:
| Year | News | Country |
| 2018 | AmTrust Financial Services, Inc. announced a strategic partnership with various Israeli Technology Firms namely Reply.ai and Verishow at OurCrowd Global Investor Summit. The partnership aims to improve AmTrust’s customer interactions with the help of video chat capabilities, chatbot communications, and improved communication with AmTrust’s systems | North America |
| 2018 | CNA Financial Corporation opened its new global headquarters in Chicago, this relocation is aimed to help the employees to connect all that CNA has to offer its customers. | North America |
| 2018 | Hartford Financial Services Group, Inc. appointed Rick Ciullo as COO for its Bond Business that provides the surety to all sizes of the company. Rick has 35 years of experience in the surety and insurance business. | North America |
| 2018 | Chubb Limited appointed Mike Berry as Head of Surety for Europe and Jamal Griffith as Head of Surety for the UK and Ireland, his surety team will cater the markets of Netherlands, Spain, Germany, Italy, France and the UK. | Europe |
