Surety Underwriter - Bond Specialist

Mercor; New York (NY); On-site; USD 100,000 - 150,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Professional designations encouraged (

Designations encouraged: AFSB/CPCU/ARM

CPA qualification welcomed

Job summary

Mercor partners with a leading AI lab to train frontier models on insurance reasoning data. We are hiring Surety Underwriters and Bond Specialists to design bonding scenarios, assess model outputs against market standards, and shape how AI reasons about contractor capacity, obligations, and defaults.

The role involves analyzing contractor financial statements and WIP schedules, evaluating indemnity and collateral concepts, and providing feedback to improve model behavior.

Qualifications

• 2+ years of professional experience in surety underwriting, bond production, surety claims, or contract-surety credit analysis.
• Experience with at least one bond category (contract, commercial, court, fiduciary, license & permit, or subdivision).
• Ability to read contractor financial statements and work-in-progress schedules to derive capacity and credit conclusions.
• Understanding of indemnity, collateral and subrogation vs. insurance loss payment.
• Excellent written reasoning, commercial and credit judgment, and high attention to detail.
• Knowledge of three-party surety relationships and related processes.
• Bonus: AFSB, CPCU, ARM, CPA, or comparable designation.

Responsibilities

• Design realistic scenarios involving bid, performance and payment bonds, single and aggregate capacity, WIP analysis, indemnity and collateral, and bond-default resolution.
• Create work products such as capacity recommendations, credit analyses, bond approvals/declinations, obligee form reviews, indemnity requirements and claim-resolution strategies.
• Write high-quality reference responses for experienced surety professionals.
• Grade AI-generated responses against structured rubrics for credit judgment, capacity reasoning, contract and bond-form accuracy, and default-resolution realism.
• Identify misread financial statements, overstated capacity, and unrealistic default or recovery strategies.
• Provide written feedback the research team uses to improve model behavior.
• Participate in onboarding office hours and calibration sessions.

Skills

Surety underwriting

Bond production

Surety claims

Credit analysis

Financial analysis

Attention to detail

Written reasoning

Indemnity concepts

Job description

About the Role

Mercor is partnering with a leading AI lab to train frontier models on high-quality insurance reasoning data. We're hiring Surety Underwriters & Bond Specialists to design realistic bonding, credit-analysis and bond-claim scenarios, evaluate model outputs against established market standards, and help shape how the next generation of AI reasons about contractor capacity, obligee requirements and default resolution.

We welcome contract and commercial surety underwriters, bond producers, surety claims professionals, and surety credit analysts from carriers, agencies, reinsurers and bond departments. Surety is a credit-driven discipline distinct from hazard underwriting, and this role reflects that.

What You'll Do

• Design realistic scenarios involving bid, performance and payment bonds, single and aggregate capacity, work-in-progress analysis, indemnity and collateral, commercial and court bonds, and bond-default resolution
• Create work products such as capacity recommendations, credit analyses, bond approvals and declinations, obligee form reviews, indemnity requirements and claim-resolution strategies
• Write "golden" reference responses at experienced surety-professional quality
• Grade AI-generated responses against structured rubrics for credit judgment, capacity reasoning, contract and bond-form accuracy, and default-resolution realism
• Identify misread financial statements, overstated capacity, confusion between surety and insurance obligations, mishandled obligee requirements, and unrealistic default or recovery strategies
• Provide written feedback the research team uses to improve model behavior
• Participate in onboarding office hours and calibration sessions

You're a Good Fit If You

• Have 2+ years of professional experience in surety underwriting, bond production, surety claims, or contract-surety credit analysis
• Have worked with at least one bond category, such as contract surety, commercial surety, court and fiduciary bonds, license and permit bonds, or subdivision bonds
• Can read contractor financial statements and work-in-progress schedules and translate them into capacity and credit conclusions
• Understand the three-party surety relationship and how indemnity, collateral and subrogation differ from insurance loss payment
• Demonstrate excellent written reasoning, commercial and credit judgment, and high attention to detail
• Can distinguish surety credit decisions from property-casualty risk underwriting and ordinary claim adjudication

Bonus Qualifications

• AFSB, CPCU, ARM, CPA, or comparable designation
• Both underwriting and surety-claims experience
• Experience with AIA and other standard bond forms, or with public-works statutory bond requirements
• Contractor default resolution: takeover, tender, financing or completion-agreement experience
• SBA bond guarantee, funds control, or small and emerging contractor program experience

Role Highlights

• Minimum 20 hours per week (ideally 40+)
• Role starts immediately, applications reviewed on a rolling basis