Bid bond requests, read against the bid documents before they reach the surety's underwriter.

A request usually arrives as the contractor's form or email with the bid documents attached. An account manager reads the instructions to bidders, the bid form, the general and supplementary conditions and every addendum to find the owner, the project, the bid date and time, the bid security form and amount, the bond forms required after award, and the liquidated damages and warranty terms. Then that gets set against what the contractor wrote, and the gaps go back before the request moves on to the surety.

In the proof of concept, AI reads copies of the same files and drafts that summary: each item as the documents state it, the page it came from, every place the contractor's request disagrees with the documents, and a short list of what an account manager must confirm before the file goes to the underwriter, such as the exact obligee name, the bid date after the last addendum, the bond forms attached and the power of attorney. No bond is issued and no surety hears about it.

The request and the documents drift apart. NASBP's Tool Kit contract bond request form asks who the bond is payable to, the legal project name with any identifying numbers, the scope, the start date and completion time, special bond forms, the warranty period, penalties or damages, retainage, the job breakdown and work on hand as of a date, then tells the contractor to attach the bid specs. Another surety's form gives a line each to the liquidated damage or penalty clause and the guarantee or maintenance period. Those lines get filled in early, and an addendum can change the bid date, the bid form or the bond forms afterward. The draft quotes both sides and lists the mismatch.

The federal form is exact about dates and defaults. Standard Form 24, revision 10/2023, says the date the bond is executed must not be later than the bid opening date. The penal sum can be written as a percent of the bid price with an amount not to exceed, and instruction 4 says each corporate surety's liability limit block holds the penal sum unless a co-surety arrangement is proposed. The form supplies terms the request never mentions: sixty days for acceptance if the bid names no period, ten days after receipt of the forms to sign and give the bonds if no period is named, and notice of extensions waived only up to sixty calendar days. Any deviation from the form needs written approval from the Administrator of General Services.

A power of attorney can cost the bid. Under FAR 28.101-3 a photocopy or fax of the power of attorney is enough, but failing to provide a signed and dated one at bid opening is treated as a matter of responsiveness, and if the surety declares it invalid the bidder can't substitute a new one or a new surety. FAR 28.101-4 generally requires rejecting a bid with a noncompliant guarantee, then lists narrow exceptions, among them a misdated or undated bond, or one that doesn't name the United States as obligee but still identifies the offeror, solicitation and project. Those exceptions are the contracting officer's to apply, so the draft treats each one as something to fix before bid day. Federal construction also takes only separate bid guarantees, so an annual bid bond on SF 34 won't serve.

State and local owners publish their own forms. The Texas Department of Transportation's rule, 43 Tex. Admin. Code 9.14, wants the bid bond on the department's form, dated on or before the bid opening, with the surety's impressed seal and powers of attorney attached, while electronic bids take a bond authorization code instead of a printed form. Wisconsin DOT's Proposal Bid Bond, DT1303, asks for the proposal number, project number and letting date, a notary for both principal and surety and a certified copy of the agent's power of attorney. Engineers' documents come as EJCDC's C-430 penal sum form or C-435 damages form, and NASBP reported that both carried a clerical error from 2007, saying the bond date should be no earlier than the bid due date when the right wording is no later than. The AIA's 1970 A310 expired at the end of 2011, so a packet that still attaches it goes on the list for your account manager.

Damages and warranty terms drive the surety's questions. A contract's liquidated damages usually sit in the agreement or the supplementary conditions, as a daily rate or a formula, and warranty language can run past the usual period or call for a separate maintenance bond. On Wisconsin's form a bidder that fails to sign or give the bond owes the proposal guaranty as liquidated damages within 10 business days of demand. The draft lists each term as written, with its page, and never says whether a term is acceptable. Your reviewer will look first at the obligee wording, the bid date after the last addendum and whether a special bond form was caught. None of this page is legal or underwriting advice.

If your reviewer says yes, new bid bond requests run through the same job for about 30 days.

An account manager checks every draft before it goes to a surety, and the surety's underwriter decides the bond. The AI never issues a bond, signs a power of attorney or writes to a contractor or an obligee.

Your reviewer keeps scoring against the same written criteria. Any next job waits until this one is live, at its own price, with monthly support after that.