How Can Construction Shield Help?
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Construction Shield is the insurance partner of choice for developers, and those who build and invest in residential real estate.
The Construction Shield team has been brought together to address the frustrations felt by the construction industry with many of the current insurance market providers.
Construction Shield aim to sit alongside our clients, building long-term relationships, to assist understanding of the range of insurance products available to assist our clients’ businesses, as well as enabling them to imbed effective risk management practises that will, ultimately, build confidence with their construction methods, leading to better terms, greater coverage and lower insurance premiums.
How are you involved with property?
Are you a housing Developer?
Do you fund housing development?
Do you build residential properties?
Do you own a portfolio of housing?
Structural Warranty Coverage
Structural warranty coverage providers vary significantly, in terms of their appetite to risk and the breadth of coverage offered. However, we can help using our selection process and assisting to select the right provider for the particular project, who may offer some of the following covers:
Structural Warranty
This provides coverage for structural issues (sometimes called Major Defects), or put another way, discovered issues or defects with the structural elements of the building after the defect liability period has expired.
Defects Insurance
Some structural warranty providers will include a defect period for the first two years (from practical completion) of cover. This cover may protect against non-structural matters/defects or technical non-compliance with the warranty provider’s manual.
Building Control Coverage
This coverage is intended to protect against non-compliance with Building Regulations that result in health or safety issues.
Deposit Protection
This cover protects the homeowner’s deposit in the event of developer insolvency during the building of the property.
Which Structural Warranty is right for you?
A structural warranty (also referred to as latent defect insurance) is an insurance product that insures the structural integrity of your new home.
This insurance product is usually taken out for a period of 10 years after completion of your new home, although longer periods are potentially available. In the usual course of events, a structural warranty is purchased by the builder of your new home, before construction begins.
However, it is intended to protect the new homeowner in the event of structural defects of the new home discovered within the first 10 years of practical completion of the new home.
A structural warranty (or latent defect insurance) is an insurance product that covers discovered defects in the workmanship, design and/or materials used in the construction of your self-build property.
The warranty provider will check your plans (known as a technical audit) and then inspect the building of your property at various key stages once construction has begun.
If something goes fundamentally wrong with your construction phase it can be very expensive to remedy. Further, with a structural warranty policy in place it negates the need for you to potentially get into a dispute and/or chase up the architect or the builder to fix the problem.
As with standard structural warranty cover, the policy is deigned to cover the policyholder in the event of a structural issue arising from the design, workmanship or materials of your project.
Retrospective warranty coverage can be provided for the balance of the 10-year period from practical completion. This means that when you intend to sell your property, the prospective purchaser or mortgagor can rely on this insurance product to secure their investment.
As the name suggests, this structural warranty policy is designed for property developers who intend to rent rather than sell their schemes.
The cover is intended to protect the developer, the contractor, the tenant as well as the investor from defects discovered after the construction phase of the scheme has been completed.
These policies can provide up to 12 years of protection for maintenance and budgeting costs.
Mix-use developments present their own challenges, however, Construction Shield can source the appropriate cover for developers who are involved with both residential and non-residential projects.
Such hybrid schemes are increasingly popular and such structural warranty policies to protect the property owner against the inherent structural defects not apparent during the construction phase of the development. The policy may also cover those defects discovered within the external car parking or roads within the scheme. Coverage is usually provided for up to 12 years from completion of the construction.
Commercial structural warranties (sometimes referred to as Latent Defects cover) are a first party insurance product that is an alternative for a collateral warranty.
The policy provides comprehensive cover for all types of developments, such as offices, warehouses, educational facilities and retail schemes.
With collateral warranties proving unreliable, a 10 or 12-year Commercial Structural Warranty policy from an ‘A’ rated insurer will provide much greater security and full risk transfer for the project. There are also potential additional covers that can be built into the policy to suit the project, such as Mechanical & Electrical cover.
Why Choose Construction Shield?
Construction Shield is the insurance partner of choice for developers of and investors in UK real estate.
We have created our process around solving the practical problems experienced by the construction industry. With a very experienced and highly skilled multi-disciplinary senior management team, Construction Shield has been borne out of and designed to deal with the frustration felt by the construction industry in relation to their traditional insurance providers.
Due to our unique insight and experience we are able to sit alongside our clients, to advise and provide insurance and risk management solutions.
This enables them to gain greater understanding of the capabilities of insurance to risk transfer liabilities away from their business and, ultimately, build better buildings that customers will want to buy and live in.
Social Housing Warranty
The social housing (structural) warranty has been designed for housing associations, registered social landlords, developers and builders and is suitable for re-generation as well as mixed-use projects.
Whether for shared ownership or rental market purposes, long-term property owners can be exposed to inherent structural defects discovered a long time after the construction work has been completed. The social housing warranty is designed to protect against structural defects from poor workmanship, design or materials, and may cover contaminated land.