SuretyScience - Blog #E-Verification

SuretyScience Advocates Modernization of Surety Bond Verification

Wed, 13 May 2026 22:05:02 -0400

Instant, Authoritative Surety Bond Verification Standard Eliminates Manual Outreach and Fraud Risk

SuretyScience™ today announced the launch of the first modernization initiative described in The Surety Blueprint™, the company’s optimized operating model designed to accelerate the Surety’s industry achievement of full automation and unlock the power of Artificial Intelligence.

Currently, verifying a Surety bond depends on manual outreach - typically phone calls or emails to insurer contacts listed on a document entitled the Bond Verification Contact Directory published by the Surety & Fidelity Association of America (SFAA). This labor intensive process has led to inconsistent verification practices, operational delays, and heightened exposure to fraud.

Despite repeated attempts to modernize bond verification, industry progress has stalled due to stakeholder misalignment, dependence on insurer funding, and concerns about distributing bond data to third party platforms. As a result, the industry has lacked a trusted, scalable, and universally adoptable approach.

SuretyScience is advocating a unified, decentralized bond verification standard that preserves insurer control while enabling instant, authoritative verification across the ecosystem. Learn more: https://www.suretyscience.ai/bond-verification.

Why This Approach Works

- Decentralized: Insurers retain full ownership and control of their data; nothing is aggregated to third parties.

- Simple: Implementation requires minimal cost, technical lift, and aligns with existing web infrastructure.

- Trustworthy: Verification occurs directly at the insurer’s official endpoint, ensuring authenticity and eliminating opportunities for manipulation.

“Bond verification should be easy, instantaneous, authoritative, and impossible to fake,” said Jeff York, President & CEO of SuretyScience. “The industry has tolerated manual Surety Bond verification for far too long. By adopting a standard that every stakeholder can trust, we create a foundation for automation, fraud prevention, and AI driven workflows that the Surety ecosystem urgently needs.”

Sign The Petition

SuretyScience invites everyone to join its movement by signing the petition for universal Surety standards including Bond Verification modernization. By supporting this initiative, stakeholders across industries can help drive the adoption of robust guidelines that protect the interests of all participants in the new digital Surety economy.

To learn more about SuretyScience, the Surety Blueprint, and to sign the petition, visit https://suretyscience.ai/blueprint#bondverification.

About SuretyScience

SuretyScience LLC is backed by private investors and industry experts committed to modernizing the Surety ecosystem. The company advances industry wide transformation initiatives and delivers data products that enable significantly higher levels of process automation and accelerate the adoption of artificial intelligence across the Surety industry, a specialized line of insurance.

Through initiatives such as The Surety Blueprint™, SuretyScience advocates for uniform processes, standards adoption, and disciplined data governance to enable automation and scalable innovation across the surety lifecycle. For more information, visit https://www.suretyscience.ai.

#Surety #SuretyBonds #TheSuretyBlueprint #SuretyAI #SuretyData #AI #FutureProof #SuretyTech #InsureTech @SuretyScience

https://www.einpresswire.com/article/912674699/suretyscience-advocates-modernization-of-surety-bond-verification

CBP Issues Proposed Rule for Electronic Bond Filing

Mon, 16 Feb 2026 14:26:38 -0500

In a Federal Register Notice (FRN) published on February 13,2026, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) announced a proposed rule to require the submission of bonds to be done electronically in the Automated Commercial Environment (ACE).

This proposed rule aims to improve the bond process by “reducing paper processing, expediting cargo release, expanding bond transmission capabilities beyond regular CBP business hours, and enhancing traceability for audit purposes.”

CBP is accepting comments on this proposed rule until April 14, 2026. Comments must be submitted through the Federal eRulemaking Portal at http://www.regulations.gov.

https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2026/02/13/2026-02961/electronic-bond-transmission

https://info.expeditors.com/newsflash/cbp-issues-proposed-rule-for-electronic-bond-filing

The Institutes RiskStream Collaborative Honors Surety Industry Leaders With 2025 Collaborator Award for Their Work on Surety X

Thu, 29 Jan 2026 11:30:00 -0500

MALVERN, Pa--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jan 28, 2026--

The Institutes RiskStream Collaborative ® proudly announces the 2025 recipients of its Collaborator Award, which recognizes organizations that have demonstrated leadership and commitment in advancing the surety bond process through their contributions to Surety X, RiskStream’s blockchain-powered platform designed to modernize the surety bond workflow.

The 2025 winners played a key role in defining functional requirements and guiding the development of Surety X, a digital platform that manages the surety bond workflow from request to issuance and delivery, featuring electronic document exchange and built-in status tracking.

Participants partnered with RiskStream by providing feedback through testing and early validation activities, helping identify pilot cohorts, and engaging in early real-world use cases, including executing the Surety X workflow with a cohort in which an actual bond was successfully exchanged on the platform. These efforts validated core capabilities such as electronic document exchange, permissioned real-time access and status updates, and built-in audit trail and version control. Such capabilities ensure that Surety X was built with practical, market-ready functionality informed directly by the needs of the surety ecosystem, and they establish a foundational framework for a fully digital, paperless surety experience.

Winners of the 2025 Collaborator Award are:

American Global

Arch Insurance

Berkley

Chubb

Intact

IMA Financial Group

Liberty Mutual

Markel

Marsh

Merchants Bonding Company

National Association of Surety Bond Producers (NASBP)

Nationwide

Scott Insurance

The Cincinnati Insurance Companies

The Hartford

The Surety & Fidelity Association of America (SFAA)

Travelers

“We’re honored to receive the Collaborator Award from RiskStream. And, we’re proud to be a part of a group helping to shape the future of the surety marketplace,” said Scott Boden, vice president – Surety, The Cincinnati Insurance Companies.

Lindey Jennings, chief underwriting officer, core surety at Markel, said, “We are honored to receive this award and very excited to be part of a technology initiative that has the potential to transform the surety industry and the delivery of our product.”

Krystal Stravato, head of surety operations at American Global, added, “This award is a tribute to the dedication of our team and our commitment to work together, not only within our firm but across organizations to help move the surety industry forward. We appreciate RiskStream’s partnership, and we value the opportunity to contribute to initiatives that support positive change.”

Surety X, built in collaboration with sureties representing nearly 70% of market share, provides a secure, permissioned environment for data sharing and document exchange among principals, brokers, obligees and sureties. By replacing paper-based workflows with standardized digital processes, Surety X aims to reduce costs, shorten bond turnaround times and improve transparency throughout the surety bond life cycle.

The 2025 Collaborator Award honors the organizations and individuals who have helped establish the foundation for a more connected and efficient surety ecosystem that embraces digitization while preserving the trust that defines the industry. RiskStream looks forward to expanding the pilot in 2026, building on this momentum to further advance the digital surety-bond workflow.

https://www.rutlandherald.com/news/business/the-institutes-riskstream-collaborative-honors-surety-industry-leaders-with-2025-collaborator-award-for-their-work/article_85eab18d-6ffc-5967-8d83-ceb4f7395fa6.html

Maine Transitions to Electronic Surety Bonds via NMLS Starting Sept. 1

Thu, 28 Aug 2025 19:09:00 -0400

The state has mandated digital bond conversion for financial service licensees by January 2026.

The Maine Bureau of Consumer Credit Protection will implement a significant change to its bonding requirements, effective Sept. 1, 2025. The bureau will exclusively accept Electronic Surety Bonds (ESB) through the Nationwide Multistate Licensing System (NMLS) for both existing licensees and new applicants.

The following license categories must comply with the new ESB requirement:

Money Transmitter License

Supervised Lender License

Loan Broker License

Debt Collector

Full and Limited-Service Payroll Processor

Debt Management Service Provider Registration

Non-Profit Lender License (same bond form as the supervised lender license)

The Maine Bureau of Consumer Credit Protection has established clear deadlines for the transition:

Sept. 1, 2025: ESB system goes live.

Nov. 1, 2025: Recommended conversion deadline to ensure smooth renewal processing.

Dec. 31, 2025: Final deadline to avoid renewal holds.

Jan. 31, 2026: Mandatory conversion deadline.

According to a statement from the bureau, “The bureau suggests converting to an ESB before Nov. 1, 2025, to expedite the renewal process. Conversion must be complete no later than Jan. 31, 2026. Any company requesting renewal that has not transitioned/converted to the ESB before Dec. 31, 2025, will be placed ‘on hold’ and will only be renewed once the conversion to the ESB is complete.”

https://www.acainternational.org/news/maine-transitions-to-electronic-surety-bonds-via-nmls-starting-sept-1/