// ON THE RECORD
FCA Surety (a division of FCA Insurance / Firstbrook Cassie & Anderson Ltd.)
The surety division of FCA Insurance, an independent Canadian insurance brokerage. It places construction surety bonds for contractors and developers — bid bonds, performance bonds, labour & material payment bonds, and construction lien bonds — including a FirstBond program aimed at new and emerging contractors.
📍 Toronto, Ontario, CanadaEst. 1919✓ 100% first-party verified
// CLIPS FROM FCA Surety (a division of FCA Insurance / Firstbrook Cassie & Anderson Ltd.)
“if you look around just look around downtown halifax most of it is all private”
“prudence isn't always a virtue there's a lot of greedy contractors out there”
“when you don't have that specialist surety broker it's almost like having your car mechanic fix your boat”
“to me that almost creates an imbalanced relationship when the owner is holding that hard security”
“would you accept a photocopy of a 20 that's how i explain it to them”
“i had an owner contact me 15 years ago to ask me if a particular bond was real”
“from the standpoint of a gc if you're on a job and you've posted a bond to hrm”
“it does two things number one protects the owner”
“there's a few different types of bonds performance bond bid bonds”
// LESSONS FROM FCA Surety (a division of FCA Insurance / Firstbrook Cassie & Anderson Ltd.)
Surety is a credit product, not insurance: the surety lends its balance sheet to vouch for the contractor to the project owner.
The bid bond is the most critical underwriting moment: once the surety backs you for a bid, it is on the hook if you win and walk away.
Atlantic Canada’s private-development boom is largely un-bonded, exposing developers and their lenders to contractor default risk with no financial backstop.
Getting bonded as a subcontractor reduces your competitive pool: you bid only against other vetted, bonded contractors.
A specialist surety broker is essential in Atlantic Canada because the market lacks the depth of full-time surety experts that Ontario has.
Surety pricing is a binary yes/no credit call first; premium rates follow creditworthiness, not actuarial loss tables.
// ALSO DISCUSSED ACROSS THE SHOW
// KEY PEOPLE
// NOTABLE
FCA Surety is a division of FCA Insurance (legal name Firstbrook Cassie & Anderson Ltd.), an independent Canadian insurance brokerage founded in 1919 and headquartered at 36 Toronto St., Suite 1000, Toronto, ON.
SOURCE ▸The firm states it has provided insurance and contractor bond programs to the construction industry since 1919, with a surety team of seven full-time dedicated surety professionals and a combined 80+ years of surety experience.
SOURCE ▸FCA offers a FirstBond program for new and emerging contractors targeting jobs under $1,000,000 who have been told they do not qualify for bonding.
SOURCE ▸FCA Surety (Firstbrook Cassie & Anderson Ltd.) is a listed surety bond producer member of the National Association of Surety Bond Producers (NASBP), with Warren Griffiths as the listed contact at the Toronto St. office.
SOURCE ▸Building like this in Atlantic Canada?
Be a guest ▸