Dear Senator:

Our company is the country’s oldest and largest provider of criminal court appearance (bail) bonding. We are, in addition, ranked by the Surety Association of America as being one of America’s top ten surety insurance underwriters.

We have been serving Colorado for many years and now we realize that CO HB 1382, if passed, would threaten our future as a private sector member of your state’s insurance companies community.

The reason for this is that under that bill, persons dedicated to the elimination of our industry would literally be “in charge” of determining whether or not our bail bond products would be allowed to be used.

The pretrial services professionals have for years, through their National Association of Pretrial Services organization, attempted to enforce their standard number four which states: “There should be no compensated surety.” Meaning, of course, that they want to eliminate the private sector because they see it as their “competition”.

Now, under this troublesome bill, they seek to have paid to themselves the very insurance premium that would normally go to their private sector service “competitor”.

The real problem with this, for Colorado’s citizens, is that history has proven that the government cannot perform as well in the bail business as private enterprise does.

Numerous very credible studies (we will be more than happy to provide these if your staff requests them) demonstrate that: (1) we do a much better job of getting persons to court and (2) far fewer persons out on our bonds recidivate.

Public safety interests alone, not to mention significant prospective economic loss, dictates that CO HB 1382 should not pass.

We stand ready to prove the validity of each proposition stated herein, should you need or want us to.

Please defeat CO HB 1382.

Sincerely,

Jerry Watson
Senior Vice President
International Fidelity Insurance Company
Direct Fax: (818) 449-7123
www.aiasurety.com