Trends in construction contractor financial data

The purpose of this technical note is to describe the results of a study investigating trends in contractor financial data to help predict their likelihood of experiencing a claim. Financial statements of 87 contractors (36 claim and 51 nonclaim) were obtained from four companies underwriting construction contract surety bonds. A claim contractor is defined as one that defaulted on a bond, many times requiring the surety to pay a loss. A nonclaim contractor is defined as one that has not defaulted on a surety bond during the period for which financial data was supplied. The described trends can assist construction industry professionals by providing them with quantitative values of financial variables for both claim and nonclaim contractors.