Construction

Newly expanded, endlessly experienced

Howden Pacific’s Construction group was founded in 2024, building off the global Howden Construction and Infrastructure group which started in 2020 and stands at over 195 employees worldwide. The Howden Pacific construction team is being built with hand-picked specialists that differentiate our offering from the market.

At its core, Howden Pacific’s construction team will focus on understanding a client’s operations and risk appetite. Truly understanding a clients risk tolerance will allow our team to leverage its deep industry knowledge and decades of experience to deliver comprehensive solutions for every type of construction and infrastructure risk, no matter how complex.

Working with us

Construction risks are increasingly complex but your experience with risk and insurance doesn’t need to be. Our teams are committed to making business simple and will work with you to create the products and services you need. From full-service insurance protection with best-in-class bespoke wordings to connecting you with various other Howden and external resources, our experts are here to help you break ground on projects that shape our world. Our construction practice is divided into the following specialist areas:

Contractors and Subcontractors

Our team delivers insurance services to the Pacific contractor market, encompassing both annually renewable programmes as well as contractor arranged project specific insurance placements. Our one stop shop approach means you benefit from class experts across your entire insurance portfolio.

Property Owners & Developers

If you’re looking for cover for a specific project, we regularly support a wide range of different clients including developers, project owners, property funds, retailers, civil construction and many others.

Professional Indemnity

P.I. in construction can be incredibly complex. We have a local expertise that ties into the global professional indemnity team. We will handle all construction indemnity cases, and manage the whole process, from placement to claims, under one roof for design and build contractors.

Our construction and infrastructure clients work in every area of business, including:

Residential (Apartments, mixed use schemes, build to rent)
Institutional & Commercial Buildings (Hospitals, stadia, schools, skyscrapers, offices)
Specialised Industrial Construction (refineries, petrochemicals, mining, utilities and power)
Infrastructure and Heavy Construction (Hydros, dams, tunnels, bridges, ports, rail)

What we do

Remember that we’re not here to provide ‘cookie cutter’ cover. You won’t find any ‘jack-of-all-trades’ on our team. We only deal with engineering and construction clients, 24/7/365.

When we design your policy, we’ll pull from a wide range of cover to make sure that your policy comprehensively covers the risks you face, without you having to pay for cover that you don’t require.

We specialise in the following insurances for construction and infrastructure clients. So if there’s cover you don’t see on the list below, or there’s a particular risk problem you’re facing right now that you’re looking to solve, get in touch today and we’ll take the necessary steps to make sure you get the cover you need.

Contract Works Insurance (CWI)

Covering property in the care and control of the insureds during the construction project, CWI protects against damage to the project and existing property where required. The policy provides protection from weather damage along with damage caused via the construction process.

Delay in Start Up (DSU)

Protects project owners against the financial consequences (loss of revenue or additional interest charges and/or refinancing fees) suffered following damage to the contract works that causes a delay in completion.

Third Party Liability

Injury or damage to third parties or their property. This is often integrated into the placement of the CWI policy or can be completely stand alone on a primary and excess basis.

Professional Indemnity solutions

In construction settings, contractors often provide both professional and non-professional services as part of their operations that create exposures that do not translate to standard insurance policies. Our specialist team work with you to design, structure and negotiate the optimum professional indemnity solutions that complement your entire work program and ensure that complex claims issues are satisfactorily covered. Even more importantly, we have the experience to ensure that claims issues are satisfactorily resolved.

Pollution Liability

Protects against liabilities incurred from the release of pollutants and other events that harm the environment (Pollution occurrence) as a result of the works undertaken at a project site. Pollution occurrences can include unintentional exacerbation of existing pollution conditions, creation of new pollution conditions and natural resource damage. This policy is designed to expand on the limited coverage a Third Party Liability policy can provide in respect of pollution related liabilities.

Marine Cargo and Delay in Start-Up

Marine Cargo insurance offers protection against accidental physical loss or damage for construction material/equipment in transit to the project site, whether it be by land, air, or sea . The policy can also be extended to protect project owners against the financial consequences (loss of revenue or additional interest charges and/or refinancing fees) suffered following damage to the materials/equipment in transit that causes a delay in project completion.

Latent Defects Insurance (LDI)

It’s not impossible for building owners to take legal action years after completion, if it takes that long for defects to show. In the standard form, Latent Defects Insurance (LDI) is a first party policy that covers physical loss or damage to a completed building caused by defects in design, materials or workmanship in the building’s structural (load-bearing) elements where such defects were not discovered at practical completion.

Portfolio solutions for infrastructure assets

We have extensive experience of the placement of projects procured under PPP/PFI/P3 delivery methods, providing a cradle to grave solutions that caters for projects from bid phase, through construction and the operational concession periods. With particular focus on the placement of portfolio solutions, we maximise buying power and comprehensive coverage, even in a challenging markets. Our experience covers projects across the full spectrum of the social and civil infrastructure sectors.

The Howden Difference

Freedom to innovate

The Pacific Construction group is run as a single P&L, enabling us to run our business in the way that best suits the needs of our construction and infrastructure clients. This enables us to be innovative and agile, quickly adapting to changing market conditions. We can design and develop pioneering new products and invest in the exact training and technology that maximises results and optimises resources. This opportunity to regain control over strategy and agency in day to day business has helped us attract top talent who thrive in an environment where their entrepreneurial instincts are trusted and valued.

Motivated to deliver

We are also employee owned. Our people are driven to collaborate, empowered to innovate and truly invested in your success. Every member of our team is a personal stakeholder in the business and we’re always searching for new ways to support you – from creating dashboards showing how insurers assess geographic risks to digging into your data to look for new efficiencies. And if anything does go wrong, our claims team is here to support you.

In-house claims handling: a vital part of our process

While the Howden Pacific group runs its claims locally, we have the global construction claims team in London to provide construction claims expertise. Like the rest of us, they only handle engineering and construction cover.

We don’t pass things along to a call centre or just forward your claims straight to the insurer. We co-ordinate all claims in-house, through our specialist claims handling team.

Our claims advocates and lawyers are fully embedded into an end-to-end client service process, right from the policy design phase. From the outset, they work with the account management team to get your wordings right. They are on hand for technical queries through the policy period. Then they handle any claims that arise – and so carry that knowledge of your business and your wordings throughout the whole process.

Finally, they feed this back into your account management team at renewal – using what they have learned, to drive the best cover, structure and price. A continual cycle, driving challenge and improvement.

Everything is focused on the prompt payment of claims

When we test the wordings our negotiations with insurers keep claims scenarios and emerging trends in mind. We know the wording, so can provide clear advice on cover and strategy when a claim comes in. We know exactly how to present information to your insurer in a way that maximises success. And, because we’ve built good relationships with the top insurers, we’ll be proactive in making sure any payments are made as quickly as possible.