HOME / COMPANIES / Intact Surety (Surety Division of Intact Insurance, a member company of Intact Financial Corporation)
// ON THE RECORD
Intact Surety (Surety Division of Intact Insurance, a member company of Intact Financial Corporation)
Intact Surety is the surety-bond underwriting division of Intact Insurance, the property-and-casualty insurer that is a member company of Intact Financial Corporation (TSX: IFC). It writes contract and commercial surety bonds (bid, performance, labour & material payment, lien, maintenance, licence/permit, court and other bonds) for contractors and businesses through insurance brokers across Canada.
📍 Toronto, Ontario, CanadaEst. 2009✓ 100% first-party verified
// CLIPS FROM Intact Surety (Surety Division of Intact Insurance, a member company of Intact Financial Corporation)
“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”
“as many contractors know the sort of trend of prompt payment is really sweeping across canada”
“it's different than insurance it's not a frequency scenario when surety companies pay out”
“to me that almost creates an imbalanced relationship when the owner is holding that hard security”
“having sort of been in atlantic canada and done surety there it's very different than ontario”
“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”
// LESSONS FROM Intact Surety (Surety Division of Intact Insurance, a member company of Intact Financial Corporation)
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.
// NOTABLE
Intact Surety states it is the largest surety writer in Canada and one of the largest sureties in North America.
SOURCE ▸Intact Surety operates a network of 12 surety branches across Canada with over 220 employees, with expertise in construction, real-estate development and commercial surety.
SOURCE ▸Intact Surety's contract-surety product line includes performance bonds and labour & material payment bonds; its commercial line includes licence/permit, customs/excise, reclamation, court and lost-instrument bonds; it also offers developer surety (Tarion, condominium deposit insurance, subdivision bonds).
SOURCE ▸Intact Insurance is described on its own site as Canada's largest home, auto and business insurance company and a member company of Intact Financial Corporation (TSX: IFC), the largest provider of property and casualty insurance in Canada.
SOURCE ▸Intact Financial Corporation traces its corporate history to ING Canada, which became Intact Financial Corporation in 2009 following ING Group's divestiture, with shares listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange under ticker IFC.
SOURCE ▸Surety bonds for contractors are distributed through brokers; the company reaches clients via a network of more than 6,000 broker offices across Canada (Intact does not sell surety bonds direct).
SOURCE ▸