The good folks at Bricker & Eckler, an Ohio law firm, recently blogged about a New York appellate decision concering subcontract default insurance (“SDI”), often referred to as “SubGuard” based on a Zurich SDI product of the same name. The case involves a private owner who alleged it was misled by its construction manager (presumably at-risk) into believing that the SDI policy the CM had procured from the project’s largest subcontractor provided coverage to the owner in the event of that sub’s default. Turns out the policy only named the CM, but not the owner, as an insured, and when the owner discovered it had no coverage after the sub’s default, it sued the CM for fraud, among other claims.
Tag Archives: subcontractor default insurance
Seeing the Forest AND the Trees: Handling Contract Surety Claims with an Eye on the Big Picture
A Grim Tale
Image by Larisa Koshkina / PublicDomainPictures.net
Once upon a time, Best General Contracting, Inc. hired Able Electric Services Co. to perform the $900,000 electrical scope of work on a library project for a local college. Having not worked with Able before, and in light of the value of the electrical scope, Best required Able to obtain subcontractor performance & payment bonds for Best’s benefit, agreeing, of course, to reimburse Able for the $13,500 bond premium. As fate would have it, the library project proved one too many for the not-so-able Able, who ran into cash flow problems, sought bankruptcy protection and abandoned the project. Best immediately fired off a notice of default letter to Superior Surety and hoped that the claims handling process would match previous, positive experiences with subcontractor sureties and culminate in a quick, fairy-tale resolution to this project setback.
To Best’s surprise, it would not. Continue reading
Filed under Claims Handling, Performance Bonds, Surety Law
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