As the construction economy continues to expand, most of our clients are reaching levels of volume and activity that they have not experienced before. Yet, they seem to be able to gather the necessary resources (human and capital) to get the job done.
This expansion of business creates increased activity for our agents and ourselves. At The Hartford, the contract underwriting department has been "building" our capacity over the past several years in order to respond efficiently and effectively to this increased activity.
Hartford Bond is committed to constantly evaluating our business and making improvements. Since 1999, we have increased our contract surety gross written premium by 62%, our bond staff has grown by 70% and we have made technological advances, improving efficiency and customer service.
The most significant improvement to our way of doing business, has been the creation of the 1Step Surety® software system, used for all of our premium processing, contract account tracking and underwriting analysis. 1Step has improved our efficiency, as well as that of our agents, by allowing point of sale booking of bonds, access to several bond forms from our forms library, and a central depository for all of our business to enhance service requests. Additionally, 1Step allows us to maintain account underwriting files to aid the underwriting process between the field and home office teams.
Over the past year and a half, we have dramatically enhanced the1Step Surety system so that all documentation associated with accounts or bonds can be viewed electronically by our staff. This allows our employees to access critical decision making information in a timely manner no matter where their business takes them (see "Technology Advances Improve Service" article in this newsletter).
For our own staff, we have an employee website which we utilize to centrally locate all of our processes, forms, underwriting guides and communications to keep our entire department connected to and focused on our strategy and goals.
Over the past eight years, since we consolidated our bond centers into one office in Orlando, FL, we have invested heavily into state of the art telephone systems, mailing systems, and technology hardware to effectively handle the increased activity of all lines of business within bond.
However, our most significant improvement has been and continues to be our talented employees. We have added significantly over the last five years to all of our regional offices and home office underwriting teams. Three years ago we reintroduced our trainee program in order to continue to position ourselves with a pool of talent to manage our growth. Our twenty-five offices across the country are working hard to offer solutions for your clients as they expand their businesses.
With several improvements to our business, we stand ready to accommodate your clients' growth, and work every day to be the industry leader when measured by: excellence of our people; innovative and timely response to opportunity; consistent, predictable underwriting; creative, timely, cost efficient claims practice and ethical, principled conduct in all of our business relationships.
As the construction economy continues to expand, most of our clients are reaching levels of volume and activity that they have not experienced before. Yet, they seem to be able to gather the necessary resources (human and capital) to get the job done.