Surety
National Telecom Group
Bridging the Digital Divide through Efficient Capital Solutions
Brown & Brown’s Surety Bond specialists bring you comprehensive Telecom and Surety insights to help you discover various ways that Surety Bonds can help protect and benefit your organization. Our team is defined by our knowledge and experience, not by location. Our collective view into the telecom, surety and insurance spaces enables us to help create tailored solutions that support your expansion. We collaborate across business and state lines with our customers and their markets to deliver on our unique value proposition as an industry-tested partner.
Know Your Options
Securing BEAD Awards
- Surety Bonds – Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment (BEAD) allows the following two formats
- Surety bond covering 100% of total awards – widely accepted by eligible entities
- Surety bond covering 10-25% of total awards – depends on reimbursement guidelines of eligible entities
- Irrevocable letter of credit (ILOC) covering 25% of total awards
- Surety-backed letter of credit (SBLC) covering 25% of total awards
- Use a surety bond as the security for the ILOC instead of cash or other company assets
Benefits of Using a Bond vs. LOC
- Credit availability: An LOC ties up the company’s credit capacity, while bonds are not credited against a bank.
- Default instrument: A bank LOC may be withdrawn at any time without default or reason. A surety demand requires proof of a company’s default from a beneficiary.
- Rates: LOC rates fluctuate based on interest rates and other marketplace factors. Surety rates are based on credit strength of the company.
- Covenants: Banks may have restrictive covenants as part of the bank line of credit or LOC program, while surety agreements do not encompass covenants.
Additional Surety Solutions
Beyond BEAD
Beyond BEAD, our carrier relationships and extensive knowledge of industry changes can support your telecommunication surety needs. We also underwrite and issue the following bonds:
- Pole Attachment bonds
- License and Permit bonds
- Bid bonds
- Right of Way bonds
- Various performance and payment bonds
- Highway and other tax bonds
Talk with the National Telecom Team
Property & Casualty
End-to-End Risk Management Solutions
Risk engineering in the telecommunications industry requires a thorough understanding of the assets, operations and management challenges insurance is designed to address. From the NID to the boardroom, we aim to help you protect your business from unforeseen events. Common issues associated with property and casualty insurance include, but are not limited to, the following:
Physical
- Network failure
- Named peril occurrence
- Strain/outage during peak traffic
- Failure to ensure infrastructure resilience and reach
- Cyberattack
Directors/Stakeholders
- Failure to meet earnings expectations
- Mismanagement of investor and stakeholder expectations
- Ineffective engagement with industry verticals and public sector
- Disagreement over share price valuations/offerings
- Failure to improve capex efficiency and network returns
- Failure to take advantage of changing market structures
- Cyber breach affecting financial arrangements and relationships
- Understanding changing imperatives in privacy, security, and trust
- Failure to mitigate disruptive scenarios
Employment Liability
- Failure to redesign workforce purpose and inclusion
- Employee Theft
- Computer fraud
- Transfer fraud
Industry Collaborators
- Failure to perform or fulfill contractual commitments for services/funding
- Includes inability to scale internal digitization initiatives
Property & Casualty and BEAD
While some expansion costs within the BEAD program are temporary in nature, others represent a fundamental change in the risk management landscape. A broader footprint will require additional investments in hardware, conduit and other physical assets. In addition, fleet vehicles and tools related to an expanding installation and maintenance crew will require consideration. Expanding human resources will require proper classification, management and reporting.
Our National Telecom team utilizes our experience and unique resources to review and revise portfolios, helping to enable growth while ensuring the security of your tangible and intangible assets.