Construction and Infrastructure

Newly expanded, endlessly experienced

Since 2020, we’ve built on Howden’s core construction expertise, seeking out experts in professional indemnity, UK Contractors, Property Owners & Developers, Infrastructure Assets and International Projects insurance to inject a much-needed dose of innovation and change into the market and giving clients a new alternative. We’ve attracted both big names and rising stars in broking and claims, and now stand as a 140 strong global practice with specialists based in key global markets.

Deep industry knowledge and decades of experience enable us 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 of 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 protection with best-in-class bespoke wording to connecting you with project financing, our experts are here to help you break ground on projects that shape our world.

Our construction and energy practice is divided into five specialist areas:

UK Contractors
Our team delivers insurance services to the UK 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.

Professional Indemnity
P.I. in construction can be incredibly complex. We have a specialist in-house indemnity team who handle all construction indemnity cases, and manage the whole process, from placement to claims, under one roof for design and build contractors.

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.

Infrastructure Assets
Our infrastructure assets and public private partnerships (PPP) team currently handles more than £51bn in assets on behalf of our clients. We can design bespoke risk solutions based on your portfolio as a whole, and use our strong relationships with insurers to negotiate hard on your behalf.

International Projects
Our global team comprises more than 100+ skilled professionals based around the globe. Whether you’re a fellow broker looking for better market access for your client, or you’re operating major projects outside the UK, we can ensure you get the specific local coverage you need to do business effectively. Our clients range from smaller contractors, right the way up to multi-million dollar global contractors and everything in between. We also work with a host of Real Estate Investments Trusts (REITs), Property Developers, Utility Owners and other Principles helping manage their risks and insurance strategies.

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.

Construction all-risk (CAR)
Comprehensive cover for all of the standard construction risks, including damage to works, damage to plant and equipment, including existing property where required.

Erection all-risk (EAR)
Designed to protect you against financial losses caused by problems during erection and installing of machinery, steel structures, plant and other equipment.

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 including Non Negligent Indemnity (6.5.1) cover in the United Kingdom. This often integrated into the placement of the CAR/EAR policies or can be completely stand alone on a primary and excess basis.

Contractual Financial Loss
Specialist insurance designed to protect our clients where Third Party Liability insurance is unable to cover pure financial loss and liability solely assumed under contract. This particularly important for anyone signing up to asset protection agreements and the like.

Employer’s liability insurance
Legally required in the UK, employer liability covers you in the event of illness or injury to employees and sub-contractors working on-site, and any resulting claims.

Terrorism Insurance
We can place insurance via the relevant government pools or through the stand alone markets as required by our clients.

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 programme and ensure that complex claims issues are satisfactorily covered. Even more importantly, we have the experience to ensure that claims issues are satisfactorily resolved.

Latent defects insurance
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

Each of our divisions 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 and quickly adapt 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 in-house claims team is here to support you. In the last three years alone, we’ve helped our clients recover over $7 billion.

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

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. Like the rest of us, they only handle engineering and construction cover.

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 in to 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

We test the wording 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.