{"version":1,"type":"rich","provider_name":"Libsyn","provider_url":"https:\/\/www.libsyn.com","height":90,"width":600,"title":"Audit the Manufacturer: What the Largest Sub-Default Insurer Sees on Quality","description":"Matthew Biehl is a Senior Construction Risk Engineering Consultant at AXA XL, the largest provider of subcontractor default insurance in the country. He paid for college loading plywood and laminate at a lumberyard, spent years on the general contractor side including a run as a director of QC, and now walks job sites for the insurer that reimburses GCs when a sub goes down. Which means he sits on something almost nobody else in our industry has: the claims data on why subcontractors actually fail. Carolina and Tim asked him to open it up. The headline number: when AXA XL runs a real root cause on a default, 70% of the issues happened before a shovel ever got in the ground. The top three causes are schedule and manpower, insolvency, and a third one that keeps creeping up the list: quality. And more and more of those quality notices trace back to equipment and material that showed up on site missing parts or not working. Matt's advice to his GC partners is to go audit the manufacturer. If you make a building product, this episode is about you. In this episode: What SDI (sub-default insurance) is, how it replaces a bond, and why it is a multi-year partnership rather than a 12-month policy The top three reasons subs default, and how labor and solvency problems show up as quality problems Why manufacturers are now part of the sub-default story, and what "audit the manufacturer" means in practice Carolina's sidewalk-over-the-starter-track story, and why product reps have to own the next trade's sequencing GCs burying their subs unintentionally with speed to market Prefab, self-perform, and concrete as a "pass-through trade": why GCs are buying their own subs The 70% number, and Matt's two biggest pet peeves: the project-specific quality plan that is a corporate plan with a new cover sheet, and the manual covered in trailer dust Why the best pre-qual benchmark for quality is your own internal data What AXA XL collects on every claim notice, and what they do with it "What do you lose when you don't do it?" The answer to every GC who asks how much a quality program saves on premium Hold points, "percent complete correct," and why holding payment is the most dangerous motivator on a project "You can't poach the willing" Data centers pulling manpower off the local hospital job, and why manpower commitments need monitoring What no one is talking about: a sub that has been in business 30 years defaults at the same rate as one that has been in business three. Relationships become comfort. Comfort becomes complacency. Find Matt on LinkedIn:  He is speaking at Advancing Construction Quality, September 21 to 23, 2026 in Phoenix. Use code BUILDPERSPECTIVES10 for 10% off registration. Build Perspectives is co-hosted by Carolina Baffigo and Tim Seims. Each episode is designed to give you immediate value while introducing you to the people broadening perspectives in the construction industry. ","author_name":"Build Perspectives Podcast","author_url":"http:\/\/buildperspectives.libsyn.com\/website","html":"