In a paper-heavy industry bound by tradition and inefficient workflows, two women imagined a better way—and built it. Pamela Stocks and Beverly Hall weren’t just entrepreneurs; they were digital pioneers who reengineered the infrastructure of Surety bond processing in the United States. Together they broke barriers, built a legacy, and left an indelible mark in a field where women were few and innovation was rare.
As co-founders of Insure Vision Technologies (IVT), Stocks and Hall created SurePath Network, a groundbreaking platform that streamlined Surety bond processing and helped modernize the entire industry. Their vision and leadership laid the digital and operational foundation that Tinubu would later build upon.
For nearly two decades, they led IVT through steady growth and transformative innovation. Stocks and Hall both passed away recently—Hall last year; Stocks at the end of 2022—but their work continues to underpin the way the Surety industry operates today, and it continues to power Tinubu. This is a tribute to their accomplishments, their extraordinary partnership, and enduring legacy.
From Friendship to Force of Innovation
One of the most impactful partnerships in the history of the Surety industry began as a neighborly connection in Sherman Oaks, California. It was there that Hall and Stocks became "best-friends-forever," a bond of personal affection and mutual respect that would become the engine of their professional lives. Their decision in 1998 to "start a quest for the American Dream by co-founding their own business" was a natural extension of this friendship.
Their success was predicated on a classic and powerful model for industry disruption: combining the deep knowledge of an insider with the strategic perspective of a business expert. Stocks, a self-taught Surety expert with decades of hands-on experience, brought unmatched industry insight and a relentless drive to fix what was broken. Hall, a finance and operations executive with an MBA from the University of Southern California, contributed the strategic planning and business structure needed to turn vision into a viable enterprise.
Building the SurePath to the Future
At the turn of the millennium, the Surety industry remained largely paper-based, hampered by inefficient, manual processes. Stocks and Hall saw this not as a barrier, but as a once-in-a-generation opportunity. In 1999, they launched Insure Vision Technologies (IVT) with one goal: to modernize the Surety bond process.
Their solution, the SurePath Network, digitized every facet of Surety bond management—streamlining workflows, reducing errors, and cutting costs for agents, brokers, carriers, and obligees. SurePath turned once-fragmented processes into a unified, efficient system embraced across the industry.
Shaping the Surety Industry, Not Just One Company
Stocks and Hall understood that building a great product wasn’t enough. They served on key industry committees at ACORD (Association for Cooperative Operations Research and Development) and the National Association of Surety Bond Producers (NASBP). There, they helped define the technical standards that allow systems and stakeholders to communicate seamlessly today.
Stocks and Hall also helped clear a path for future generations of women in Surety. Their pioneering success came well before formal support networks like Women in Surety (WIS) were established. When WIS was founded in 2016, Stocks and Hall had already spent nearly two decades showing that women could lead industry transformation. They served as role models before the community was ready to name them as such, and their legacy continues to inspire a new wave of female leaders.
From Insure Vision Technologies to Tinubu: A Legacy Secured
After 19 years of leading IVT, Stocks and Hall took the final step in securing their legacy. In 2017, Insure Vision Technologies was acquired by the Steckler Group, an InsurTech-focused entity that shared their vision of innovation and customer focus, and was renamed SuretyWave. The integration of SuretyWave's digital platform architecture with IVT's market-leading SurePath Network created the industry's "most automated and flexible surety processing system."
Stocks and Hall remained on board through the transition, committed to ensuring a seamless future for their platform and clients.
The value of the platform that Stocks and Hall created was further affirmed just a few years later when SuretyWave was acquired by Tinubu in December 2020. The acquisition was a major strategic move for Tinubu, which already counted 30 of the top 60 worldwide credit and Surety underwriters as its customers.
Today, SurePath remains a core part of Tinubu’s end-to-end Surety platform in the U.S.—a living tribute to Stocks and Hall’s foresight and leadership.
More Than Founders—They Were Foundational
Pamela Stocks and Beverly Hall did more than start a business. They created the systems and set the standards that power today’s Surety industry. Beyond being innovators, they were also mentors, role models, and trailblazers in a space where women had rarely been given a seat at the table.
Their legacy lives on in every Surety bond processed efficiently, in every stakeholder connected through streamlined systems, and in the ongoing success of Tinubu’s Surety solutions, which will forever be indebted to their innovations. Most of all, their legacy lives on in the example they set: that leadership grounded in trust, vision, and friendship can truly transform an industry.
