What is a contractor questionnaire?

It is the surety's own application form for contract bonds, covering ownership, history, completed work, current backlog, banking, bonding history, claims, and litigation. It sits alongside your financial statements and work-in-progress schedule in the submission.

Do I have to disclose a past claim or lawsuit?

Yes, and it is much better to. Underwriters verify this independently, and a disclosed claim with an explanation is a manageable fact. The same claim discovered later reads as concealment, and that costs you the file rather than the rate.

What if I have never had a bond before?

That is a normal starting point, not a problem. Say so plainly. A blank bonding history with solid completed work is far easier to underwrite than a vague answer that suggests you are hiding a prior relationship that ended badly.

Should my CPA or my broker fill it out?

You should, with your broker. The questionnaire asks about judgement and history that only you know, and the answers need to reconcile to statements your CPA prepared. A broker's job is to make sure the story the form tells matches the numbers behind it.

How long does the questionnaire take?

An hour or two if your records are current, considerably longer if you are reconstructing a job history from memory. That is the argument for keeping a completed-work log as you go.

How to Complete a Contractor Questionnaire

Contract underwriting, by the numbers

4 years: Journey-level experience the CSLB generally requires to qualify for a license; CSLB
10%: Minimum bid security on California public works; CA Public Contract Code
~290,000: Licensed California contractors, across 44 classifications; CSLB, 2025
~80%: New U.S. construction businesses that survive their first year; U.S. BLS

One rule before you start

Everything on this form is checked against something else. Your revenue figure is checked against your income statement. Your backlog is checked against your WIP schedule. Your claims answer is checked against the surety's own industry records. The questionnaire is not the source of truth; it is the consistency test.

So the rule is: precise, complete, and reconciled. A number that does not tie to the statements behind it does more damage than the number itself ever would.

Ownership and structure

Who owns what percentage, who the officers are, and how long the entity has existed. This establishes who will be asked to sign the indemnity agreement, and it is why a personal financial statement follows for each meaningful owner.

Two things underwriters watch for here. A recently formed entity with a long-established predecessor raises the question of what happened to the old one. And an owner who does not appear anywhere in the operating side of the business raises the question of who actually runs the jobs. Neither is disqualifying; both need an explanation you should offer rather than wait to be asked for.

Completed work

Your largest completed jobs, usually with owner, contract value, type of work, and completion date. This is the single most influential section, because completed work at a given size is the evidence that supports a bond at that size.

List the relevant ones, not just the biggest. If you are bidding a school, the school work matters more than a larger warehouse.
Include the final gross profit where the form asks. Consistent margins are a stronger signal than large ones.
Do not inflate. Owners get called. A contract value that does not match what the owner remembers is the worst outcome on this form.

Work on hand

Your current backlog, bonded and unbonded. It has to reconcile to the WIP schedule you submitted, line for line. Underestimating backlog to look less busy backfires: it reads as either sloppy record-keeping or an attempt to hide committed capacity, and both cost you.

Remember that unbonded work counts. It consumes the same crews and cash, and the surety wants the whole picture, not the bonded slice.

Banking and credit

Your bank, your line of credit, its limit and current balance. A committed line that is largely undrawn is one of the strongest signals in the whole submission: a second institution has already underwritten you, and there is cash available if a job runs long.

If you have no line, say so. It lowers the ceiling rather than closing the door, and it is one of the specific things funds control exists to compensate for.

Bonding history

Which sureties have bonded you, your largest bond to date, and your current aggregate. If you have never been bonded, write that. It is a clean starting point and newer contractors get bonded every day.

What underwriters are really asking is whether a surety has already looked at you and said no, or ended the relationship. If that happened, explain it here in your own words. Coming from you it is context; found independently it is a reason to stop reading.

Claims, disputes, and litigation

The section people most want to soften, and the one where softening does the most damage. Disclose bond claims, lien disputes, arbitration, judgments, and tax liens. For each, three sentences: what happened, how it resolved, and what changed afterward.

Underwriters are not looking for a spotless record; construction produces disputes. They are looking for whether you tell them about it. A contractor who volunteers a difficult history with a clear account of it is often easier to place than one with a suspiciously empty form.

Before you send it

Reconcile every number to the financial statements and WIP schedule in the same packet.
Answer every field.Blanks get interpreted, and rarely generously. Write "none" where none applies.
Attach the explanations rather than compressing them into a form field. A one-page cover note on a claim is better than a cramped line.

We complete these with contractors every week and know what a given surety will stop on. Send us the form and the statements together and we will tell you what is going to be asked before it is asked. Start a contract bond quote, or see the whole submission packet. Underwriting always applies and we never promise guaranteed approval.