The Importance of Bonding Partnerships

We were given the wonderful opportunity to host a meeting a few weeks ago, with our partners at Marsh Risk and Insurance Services, a company with whom we have worked now for several years. It’s important to us to feel that we can rely on such a partner, and in Marsh, we feel it is trust well placed, given the company’s 145-year history and our own experience with them. They provide us construction-focused consulting, brokerage, and claims advocacy services, and recently they have been helping us to boost our bonding capabilities.

Trust is clearly a two-way street, according to Austin Neff, Senior Vice President for Marsh. Austin explains that in order to help companies such as ours to provide insurance services, there are certain criteria they use to analyze their own risk before deciding credit worthiness and limits. Like the 5 “C’s” jewelers use to analyze the quality of diamonds, surety companies have their own list of “C’s:”

1. Capital: they evaluate our financial strength using a series of metrics and ratios. This includes an analysis of our working capital, liquidity, debt, profitability – along with many other factors gleaned from studying our financial statements;
2. Capacity: they look at our operational capabilities, who are our personnel, what does each person do, what are our current and future staffing needs, by what percentage do they need to grow in order to support our projected future growth;
3. Character: our industry reputation for our integrity. I’m confident that here they found our references to be stellar, since “integrity” is a tenet of our mission statement and for which we are very proud. Through the worst of the recession, we always paid every vendor, something that not all companies can claim.

The surety industry considers each of these criteria very seriously, since once issued, bonds are non-cancelable. Austin explained that when considering the character of a company, “This is where trust comes in. After working together for a few years, and things have gone well, mutual trust between both of our companies has developed over time.”

We toured LAX for bonding purposes. Our bonding broker, Marsh, set up the appointment to bring us closer and up front with Liberty Mutual (our surety company). Richard Aparicio (Foreman & Journey Local 636) led the tour along with Tom Molinaro. Richard has done a lot of work at LAX and has been a long term employee of Giroux. Of course, nothing makes a meeting about construction insurance more interesting than seeing an actual construction site in progress, a visual experience of those insurance “votes of confidence” being put to good use. We decided to tour the Marsh and Liberty teams through our recent renovation at TBIT, and our current projects at Terminal 1 with Hensel Phelps. Our scope at Terminal 1 includes installing curtain wall, storefront, handrail, guardrail, mirrors, and more. We expect to complete this current project, of so many that we have done at LAX, by 2018.

Austin said in response to seeing our work there at LAX, that “having spent the last few years reading contracts and working with the Giroux Glass team to secure bonds for various projects, it was great to finally see one in action. The amount of coordination and detail that goes into a project like this is incredible. Given Giroux Glass’ extensive history at the airport, I can’t wait to see what opportunities come up next, given all of the additional work that will be available.”

Growing up in the construction world, Austin shared with us his excitement over being able to continue in the industry, in risk and insurance services at Marsh. “I thoroughly enjoy working with firms like Giroux Glass to help them advance their business objectives and build their businesses,” he said.

“Working with Giroux Glass over the last few years has been blast. Every time we meet or talk to the team, it is clear that every member is passionate about their role in the company and delivering the best possible glazing products to the clients. I’m always amazed to hear about all the new opportunities that are available to Giroux Glass, which is a true testament to the company’s reputation and execution on projects.”

We’re grateful for Austin’s comments and our close relationship with Marsh. We hope this also serves as a helpful testament to the importance of strong bonding partnerships.