The clocks go back on 25 October. For most builders, that means shorter days on site and longer nights with materials left behind.
Thieves know this too. In BauWatch research, 69% of workers said construction crime rises once the clocks go back and the nights draw in. Continue reading “Does Contract Works Insurance Cover Theft?”
A home renovation should add value to your property, not wipe out your savings. For one Margate couple, a downstairs renovation that involved knocking through a wall and fitting a steel beam caused their home to collapse, leaving more than £50,000 of damage. The builder admitted liability, but its insurer refused to pay because of incorrect information on the policy, and the couple’s own home insurer turned them down because the cause was poor workmanship. Continue reading “Your Builder Has No Public Liability Insurance”
From 30 September 2026, all new residential buildings over 18 metres must be designed and built with two protected staircases. The requirement comes from amendments to Approved Document B, the government’s fire safety guidance, published in March 2024 as part of the response to Grenfell.
Continue reading “Second Staircase Rule 2026: Construction Insurance Impact”
Most builders can produce an insurance certificate. Far fewer can explain what it actually covers, what it excludes, or whether it matches the contracts they are signing. That gap is where claims get rejected, tenders get lost, and businesses get exposed.
Continue reading “Builders Insurance: What Cover You Actually Need”
The delivery lorry drops off a hired excavator, the driver hands over the paperwork, and within seconds you are fully liable for a machine worth tens of thousands of pounds. Most contractors sign the hire ticket without reading the small print. The exposure only becomes clear when a machine is stolen overnight, damaged mid-job, or written off in a fire.
Continue reading “Plant Hire Insurance Explained for UK Contractors”
You finish the project on time. The finish is good, the price is right, and an offer comes in within a fortnight. Then the buyer rings their insurer, mentions that the foundations were underpinned during the build, and the quote never arrives. Their lender will not release funds without buildings cover. The sale stalls, then dies. Continue reading “Insurance for Underpinned Houses: A Developer’s Guide”
Only around a third of construction products sold in the UK are currently covered by a proper safety standard. The rest sit in a grey area, tested against trade rules rather than safety rules, and often carrying marks that look official but were never designed to prove a product is safe to use. Continue reading “Construction Products Reform: Know Your Risk Before It Costs You”
The digger arrives. The first cut goes into the ground. From that moment, everything below the surface becomes unpredictable.
Groundworks is where a project turns from paper into reality, and it’s also where risk becomes hardest to control. Generic construction insurance is usually built with finishing trades in mind, painters, plasterers, joiners. It rarely accounts for what happens when work moves underground. Continue reading “Insurance for Groundworks Contractors: What Standard Policies Miss”
Most homeowners assume their buildings insurance just keeps working in the background, no matter what they do to the property. Then a renovation starts, and that assumption gets tested.
Research from Alan Boswell Group found that 86% of property owners do not tell their insurer about work being carried out on their home, which puts their policy at risk of being voided. That is not a small oversight. It is the single most common reason a renovation ends up costing far more than the building work itself. Continue reading “House Insurance When Renovating”
A crack appears in the wall of a five-year-old new build. It runs along a load-bearing section, and no snagging inspection could have picked it up when the property was handed over. The fault was there from the start, hidden inside the structure, and it has only just become visible.
This is a latent defect. It is very different from the scuffed paintwork or sticking door that gets flagged during a final walkthrough. Latent defects stay hidden until long after completion, sometimes for years, and when they surface the repair bill can be substantial. Continue reading “Latent Defects Insurance Explained: What It Covers and Who Pays”