Insights
Notes from the underwriting desk
Our explainers, company announcements and financial reporting in one archive. Wordings, working capital and the published record of FDI Insurance DAC, an independent Irish credit and suretyship insurer.
Erriff River, Co. Mayo · JoachimKohlerBremen, CC BY-SA 4.0
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Everything else
Company and results · 4 min read
Reading FDI Insurance DAC’s results: capital, underwriting and the reporting date
A specialist insurer’s premium income, own funds and solvency ratio answer different questions. Reading them together explains the financial record behind FDI Insurance DAC’s independently managed underwriting business.
17 October 2026
Guarantees · 7 min read
Seguro de caución for energy projects in Spain: the five guarantees a plant posts, from grid access to dismantling
A wind, solar or storage project in Spain is secured by guarantees long before it earns a euro — for its grid connection, to the administration that authorises it, on its construction contracts, to the party that buys its power, and for taking it down at the end. What each one secures, who holds it, when it is released, and why one facility carries them better than five avales.
9 October 2026
Market · 5 min read
Seguro de caución in Spain’s energy sector: one project, five guarantees, one facility
Since our Spanish register entry opened in July, the enquiries that reach the desk through the agency are, more than any other kind, about energy: wind, solar and storage projects that have to post security for grid access, to the administration, on the EPC contract, to the offtaker and for dismantling — and that have so far done it with bank avales, one at a time. We would rather look at the project once.
9 October 2026
Guarantees · 6 min read
Renting in Spain: the fianza, the extra security, and a caución that lets more tenants sign
Spanish law fixes the deposit at one month’s rent and caps what a landlord may ask on top. It is the part on top — the aval or the extra months — that keeps good tenants out of good flats. A caución de alquiler written for a household stands in its place.
6 October 2026
Company news · 4 min read
A caución de alquiler for Spain, issued by the real estate agency in under three hours
From today, real estate agencies in Spain can join a programme that issues a rental guarantee in place of the aval or the extra months in cash a landlord asks for — priced for a household, assessed by automatic scoring, pre-approved by the agent in our portal and signed by the tenant with a one-time code. Spain only, and we are inviting agencies to write to us.
6 October 2026
Guarantees · 6 min read
Seguro de caución: what it is, when Spanish law admits it, and how it is placed
A guarantee written by an insurer rather than a bank, admitted for the garantía definitiva, the tax aplazamiento and the grid connection — and the reason a Spanish contractor’s credit line is still there when the award lands.
11 September 2026
For brokers · 5 min read
Ask for a facility, not a bond
A bond is underwritten once and then it exists. A facility is underwritten once and then it is used. The difference shows up on the third award of the year, under a deadline.
7 September 2026
Company news · 4 min read
Spain, Italy and Romania now come through one agency
Credit and caución business in the three markets is distributed and administered by our associated managing general agent, in the market’s own language and on its own timetable. The underwriting authority, the paper and the capital stay in Dublin.
4 September 2026
Credit · 5 min read
In a credit policy, the limit is the cover
A trade credit policy is not one decision about a supplier. It is several hundred small decisions about that supplier’s buyers, and any of them can be changed while the policy runs.
3 September 2026
Regulation · 4 min read
A consultation about consultations, and why a small insurer should answer it
The Central Bank of Ireland is consulting on how it assesses the impact of the rules it makes and on how it engages the people those rules land on. Submissions close on 30 September 2026. For an undertaking that reported £16.21m of eligible own funds in its last filed report, proportionality is not an abstract question.
2 September 2026
Underwriting · 5 min read
The four things we read in a set of accounts
A surety submission is decided on the applicant’s balance sheet long before anyone looks at the contract. This is what an underwriter turns to first.
1 September 2026
Company news · 4 min read
The 2024 solvency report, and every report before it
Our Solvency and Financial Condition Report for the year ended 31 December 2024 is published, and the six filed reports from 2019 onwards are now hosted here rather than linked elsewhere.
28 August 2026
Guarantees · 5 min read
The counter-indemnity is the real contract
A bond is the document the beneficiary holds. The counter-indemnity is the document that decides who actually carries the loss, and it is the one applicants read least carefully.
26 August 2026
Company news · 3 min read
Indicative bond pricing now sits with the bonds
The bond issuance calculator has moved out of the top-level menu and onto the guarantees range page, under the products it prices.
19 August 2026
Guarantees · 4 min read
The retention that never comes back
Cash retention is the largest interest-free loan most Irish contractors will ever make. A retention bond ends it without weakening the employer.
14 August 2026
Regulation · 4 min read
New prohibition guidance, read from a board that is still being appointed
On 30 July 2026 the Central Bank of Ireland published Supplemental Guidance on Prohibition Notices under the Fitness and Probity Regime, with its feedback statement on Consultation Paper 166. Ten of the twelve seats and key functions described on our leadership page are Pre-Approval Controlled Functions, so this is a document we read about ourselves rather than about somebody else.
6 August 2026
Market · 4 min read
The customs guarantee nobody resized
Five years on from the change in trading arrangements, the recurring problem on our desk is not whether a comprehensive guarantee can be obtained. It is that the limit was set for a business that has since grown.
30 July 2026
Company news · 5 min read
Spain is open: crédito and caución, on our own paper
On 19 July 2026 FDI Insurance obtained its entry in the register of the Dirección General de Seguros y Fondos de Pensiones, under clave L1617. Two complete ramos are active: 14, crédito, and 15, caución. We are going after public works, energy and renewables, and guarantees for tax liabilities — and Spanish brokers reach us through the associated agency that manages the market.
29 July 2026
Regulatory · 5 min read
Our capital requirement follows premium, not claims
A surety book with no claims can still be asked for more capital, and a book with a bad year can be asked for less. That is the standard formula doing what it was designed to do.
21 July 2026
Market · 4 min read
Bond capacity is a balance sheet question, not a pipeline question
Contractors tendering for more work than they have ever held at once discover the constraint late: not whether they can win it, but whether anyone will bond it.
9 July 2026
Regulatory · 5 min read
Why our cover ratio fell while our capital rose
Eligible own funds went up by £455k in 2023. The SCR cover ratio went down by 35 points. Both statements are true and the reason is worth explaining.
30 June 2026
Economy · 5 min read
What a rate cycle does to a small insurer’s balance sheet
An undertaking that holds its assets in short-term deposits has a very simple investment story and a less simple capital one. Ours is visible in the published numbers.
17 June 2026
Economy · 4 min read
Trade credit demand arrives after the slowdown, not during it
Enquiries for credit insurance follow a familiar and awkward rhythm: they rise once the losses have started, which is the point at which the cover is hardest to write.
28 May 2026
Guarantees · 3 min read
On-demand or conditional: the clause that decides everything
Two performance bonds can carry the same value, the same term and the same premium, and behave completely differently when someone calls them.
19 May 2026
Market · 4 min read
A market of 114 undertakings, and what that means for a small one
The register of authorised non-life undertakings is also a map of the market. Read it and the position of a specialist writer becomes fairly clear.
6 May 2026
Market · 4 min read
The bond book does not live in Dublin
Public infrastructure, food processing, marine works and regional distribution generate more of the guarantee demand we see than anything in the capital does.
22 April 2026
For brokers · 3 min read
What we actually need to appoint you
Our terms of business process asks for four things. Applications that include all four are usually approved inside ten working days.
8 April 2026
For brokers · 4 min read
Send us the wording at tender, not at award
Almost every bond that takes weeks to issue takes weeks because the wording arrived after the contract was signed. The fix costs nothing and belongs to the broker.
12 March 2026
Regulation · 5 min read
Operational resilience, read off a very short list of dependencies
The Central Bank of Ireland published its Regulatory and Supervisory Outlook for 2026 on 26 February. It sets out how the supervisor reads the risk landscape and what it intends to work on. Its themes land on an undertaking of this size in a way worth writing down.
4 March 2026
Guarantees · 4 min read
Six years of the land bridge
The customs guarantee market that Brexit created has settled into a shape nobody designed. Deferment limits are the pinch point.
25 February 2026
Regulatory · 4 min read
Fair value in a market with no retail customers
Product oversight and governance rules apply to commercial surety as much as to retail insurance. The evidence they ask for is different.
16 January 2026
Something here you want to talk through?
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