Underwriting Perspectives: Brendan Keating, Executive Vice President, DUAL Surety on stewardship, strength, and significant growth

Q: Brendan, can you share some background about your program, including how your team approaches risk, and how your coverage is structured? 

A: DUAL Surety launched in 2023 and has been providing customized solutions for specialized risks ever since. Overall, we’re developing a surety portfolio with specialization in commercial and contract surety, but not a 50/50 split. We want to focus more heavily on commercial surety, and we continue to specialize our program to fit this goal. It’s important for us to have the depth of knowledge to adjust to any external forces in the market, like tariffs, labor shortages, and other macroeconomic factors so that we can pivot while maintaining core strengths. 

While it’s still somewhat unique for a surety program to be part of a program administrator, it’s allowed us the flexibility to really develop business we’re good at. Our underwriters have a few key specialties across commercial, contract, and international surety bonds, including engineering, mining, oil and gas, and more. We regularly evaluate our opportunities and strengths to ensure we pivot our business as needed to navigate changing industries and uncontrollable challenges.

Q: DUAL Surety just announced a major growth milestone, can you share some of the key details of this change?

A: We’re really excited about this newly announced capacity towards our program, which comes from our singular carrier partner, who is backed by an “A” A.M. Best and “A+” S&P rating. This partnership has existed since the inception of the program, and we have just announced that we are expanding the flexibility and strength of this partnership with increased capacity. The announcement is a testament to our debut in the market to date, and our ability to meet growing client demand. As a result, we are increasing overall limits by 50%, so our single limits have increased from $100 million to $150 million, and aggregate limits now reach $300 million (previously $200 million). 

As we look to continue to build a world-class surety portfolio with our partner, the increased resources coupled with the team’s expertise will enable us to achieve what we set out to do. The backbone of our carrier partnership is consistency, communication, and integrity. We’re in a unique position for how we process business and how we are able to grow our international presence, and this change reinforces the belief our partners have in our success. 

Q: What else makes DUAL Surety so unique in today’s market?

A: DUAL Surety is a leader in today’s market, largely due to the success of our underwriters, but also because of the way we have chosen to develop and grow the program under the umbrella of DUAL, who is a program administrator. This format is certainly picking up more steam in the market; however, it’s still a relatively new concept that requires diligence, data, and communication. Because we are underwriting on behalf of our carrier partners, it is our responsibility to act as stewards of their capital. As such, we facilitate more information flow, and have much less room for error with the added layer of a constituent.

As a program administrator, DUAL has many teams that were built this way, creating a culture of trust, transparency, and communication that is infused into every interaction we have with partners and internally. This, combined with our high internal standards for underwriting, allows the team to be so successful and continue to grow our partnerships in this market. Ultimately, we are responsible for the accuracy and amount of information we report, and while there are reporting requirements in place, we take our responsibility seriously and often provide more information, more often, than is standard in the industry. This team is empowered to use their skills, experience, and strong underwriting standards to be leaders in how we operate. 

Q: What are the factors that underscore “underwriting discipline” in your program?

A: Underwriting discipline is a core tenet of our program, as mentioned, we hold ourselves to extremely high standards, especially as we seek to treat our partner’s capital like our own. Some of the ways we introduce diligence into our work is through tools like CAPIQ, which supports the credit side of our underwriting. We also use some industry-specific software for the oil & gas and mining industries. We’re testing ways as an organization to most effectively leverage AI, largely to allow us to more efficiently gather data, but with the idea that human expertise is the defining factor of what we do. Even with new trends aiding the underwriting process, we firmly believe that we must still maintain the tried‑and‑true principles that deliver a strong offering. We underwrite the client’s character, capacity, and credit, and onboard clients that we can trust and work with in both the best of times and the worst of times. 

Another key component of underwriting discipline is making sure we have the best team in place. While there’s always a war on talent in the insurance industry, our philosophy is to find people who are good at what they do and want to own and create their own business, modeled after our program administrator roots. This entrepreneurial spirit is present throughout DUAL and is often coupled with creativity and innovation. For example, our surety team is not made solely of classic underwriters, and many experiences can be valuable. Inviting in new backgrounds, such as a former mining engineer, who has deep expertise in their field, means we can bring a new perspective and depth to the ways we think about underwriting our accounts.