Thursday 16 May 2013

Contractors Insurance - Contract Works Extension

A long one (sorry) but worth reading...

Companies who are in the building / construction industry, particularly those extending existing properties or building new ones, must consider all of their options when it comes to insurance. There are many circumstances which you may overlook and potential for huge gaps in cover.

Your legal requirement is to protect your Employees and Labour Only Sub Contractors with Employers Liability cover. This cover pretty much always comes with Public Liability cover to protect you against claims for damage to third parties and third party property.
This is as far as a lot of contractors go in terms of insurance as it ticks the box on the legal side and provides your client with the piece of mind that you have Public Liability in force to protect them and their property.

So, if you're building a £60,000 extension to the side of a property and have spent £50,000 so far in labour and materials to get it a good deal of the way to being finished, what would happen if there was a fire in the property or a storm (or any other standard insurable hazard) and the entire extension came tumbling down? Who's legally liable to pay for this? The client? No! The client's home insurers? No! The client's insurer will not cover the additional structure until the works have been completed on it.

This would leave it down to the main contractor to pay the £50,000 to get it back to the point it was at prior to the loss.

There is an extension to your contractors policy that you can purchase that will cover this, and indeed any contract you do, provided any individual contract doesn't exceed the maximum value and duration you declare at the start of the policy. Also, generally speaking, you would need to arrange this before a contract begins. The extension is called Contract Works cover, which is one of 3 main parts to an extension known as Contractors All Risks (the other two being Own Plant Cover and Hired In Plant Cover). Different insurers offer varying limits of contract value and duration and we have access to insurers with schemes set up for this type of policy.

For more advice, information or to obtain a quotation, please either call Ricky Marshall on 01249 463206
or email your contact details and a convenient time to ricky.marshall@advanceinsurance.co.uk and I'll call you back.
For more information on what Advance Insurance do, please see our website www.advanceinsurance.co.uk

1 comment:

  1. DurAmerica Brockerage, Inc. specializes in providing business insurance for General Contractors, NY Contractors Insurance, Restaurants, Trucking and Moving Companies.
    Main Office
    37-14 30th St
    Long Island City, NY 11101
    718-626-0700
    info@duramerica.com
    http://www.duramerica.com/

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