Building Consultant & Project Manager Insurance
A building consultant carries a professional exposure without building anything, which makes it easy to under-insure and easy to misdescribe.
Advice And Certification, Not Construction
The work is advice, inspection, instruction and certification: specifying remedial work, administering a contract, certifying interim payments, acting as employer's agent, producing condition or defect reports. None of it involves a tool, and all of it is relied upon by somebody spending money.
The claims follow from that. Certifying work that was not done to standard, valuing an interim payment wrongly, missing a defect on an inspection, or advising a course of remedial work that did not solve the problem. The loss is financial, the building is somebody else's, and public liability does not answer any of it.
What Building Consultant Insurance Covers
Professional indemnity
The core cover. Claims that your advice, inspection, instruction or certificate caused a financial loss, including the defence costs, which on a construction dispute are substantial on their own.
Certification liability
Specifically the exposure from signing: interim certificates, practical completion, making good. A certificate issued when the work did not justify it is the classic claim in this discipline.
Public liability
Injury or damage arising from your presence on site rather than from your advice. Required by nearly every site access arrangement.
Employers' liability
Compulsory from the first employee at a £5 million statutory minimum, including associates working under your direction.
Run-off cover
Construction defect claims surface over many years. Cover must continue after the practice closes, or every previous project is unprotected.
Legal expenses
Recovering unpaid fees, which on a disputed project is a live problem, and employment matters.
Where The Cover Stops
Wordings differ between insurers, so treat these as the usual position rather than as universal fact. Where one of them matters to you, it is worth checking on your own schedule before you need to.
Fitness for purpose obligations
Professional indemnity covers negligence, meaning a failure to exercise reasonable skill and care. An appointment that promises a result, or warrants fitness for purpose, imposes a stricter duty that most policies exclude. These clauses arrive quietly in appointments.
Claims made, with a long tail
The policy in force when the claim is made responds, not the one in force when you certified. Construction claims arrive years later, so continuity and the retroactive date decide whether old projects are covered.
Liability assumed under contract
Where an appointment gives away more than the law would impose, the excess is usually outside cover. Net contribution clauses work in your favour and are worth asking for.
Cladding and fire safety
As with architects, many wordings now restrict or exclude claims connected with external wall systems. If your work has touched them, read that clause before anything else.
Services outside the declared scope
Employer's agent, expert witness and principal designer duties are each different exposures. A policy describing general consultancy may not reach a statutory role.
The Certificate Is The Claim
Everything a building consultant produces can be disputed, and the certificate is the document most often at the centre of it.
An interim certificate authorises payment. If it over-values work that was not done, and the contractor then fails, the employer has paid for something they did not receive and will look at who certified it. A practical completion certificate issued on a building with outstanding defects does something similar: it starts time running, releases retention and transfers risk.
The protection is procedural rather than clever. Inspect before certifying rather than relying on an application. Record what was inspected, when, and what was outstanding. And keep the valuation reasoning, not just the figure. Those records are what a defence is built from, and they have to exist before the dispute rather than be reconstructed afterwards.
Read The Appointment Before You Sign It
This is the single most valuable thing a consultant can do with ten minutes, and it is the thing most often skipped on a project everyone wants to start.
Three clauses matter. Whether the standard of care is reasonable skill and care, which is insurable, or something stricter. Whether liability is capped, and at what. And whether there is a net contribution clause, which limits your share to what is fairly yours rather than leaving you carrying the whole loss because the contractor has dissolved.
Insurers are generally comfortable with negotiated caps and standard duties, and far less comfortable with an uncapped fitness for purpose obligation discovered at claim stage. Amendments at the pre signature stage are ordinary and routinely accepted.
Expert Witness Work Is Its Own Category
Acting as an expert witness in a construction dispute is a distinct activity and insurers treat it that way, because the exposure is different from ordinary consultancy.
An expert's duty is to the court or tribunal rather than to the instructing party, and a claim typically alleges that the opinion was negligently reached rather than that a building was defective. Some wordings exclude it, some sub-limit it, and some are happy with it declared.
If you do it, even occasionally, declare it. It is the sort of work that starts as a favour for a client and becomes a line of business without anybody updating the policy.
How To Choose A Broker For A Building Consultancy
The wording does more work than the premium in this discipline, because the exposures arrive through documents you are asked to sign. We are an FCA regulated broker and will not claim to be the best choice. These decide it.
Will they read your appointments before you sign?
A fitness for purpose clause is usually outside cover and is fixable before signature, not after. This is the most useful thing a broker does for a consultant.
Does the quote contemplate certification?
Interim certificates and practical completion are where the claims come from. A policy written for general advisory work may not have considered them.
What is the cladding and fire safety position?
Most wordings now restrict it, and the restriction may reach past work. If nobody has raised it, nobody has read the schedule.
Have you declared employer's agent or expert witness work?
Each is a separate exposure. Work that started as a favour has a habit of becoming a declared activity only after a claim.
Can they state your retroactive date?
Construction claims arrive years later. If no one knows how far back cover reaches, no one has checked.
Factually, we read appointments and tell you which clauses sit outside the policy before you sign them, we ask what you certify rather than assuming advisory work only, we check the cladding position and the retroactive date when a practice moves to us and say plainly what is restricted. We are a broker, so it goes to several insurers rather than one.
We do not publish a starting premium for building consultancy, because our book holds fewer than ten policies in it.
What Moves The Price
Every policy is priced on the business behind it. These are the things that move the premium:
- The services offered, particularly certification and employer's agent
- Project values rather than fee income
- Any involvement with external wall systems
- Whether you act as expert witness
- The limit required, and whether defence costs erode it
- The retroactive date and any notified circumstances
We are a broker, so we take it to several insurers rather than quoting one. Call 02382 000820 for a quote.
What We Need To Quote
- A full list of services, including anything occasional
- Annual fee income and typical project values
- Whether you issue certificates, and of what kind
- Any external wall system or fire safety involvement
- The retroactive date on your current policy
- Claims or circumstances notified in six years
Cover that often goes with this
The gaps we most often find sitting next to this policy.
- SurveyorsThe same projects, from the survey and valuation side.
- ArchitectsDesign liability, collateral warranties and novation.
- Insurance for professionalsWhat professional cover has in common across disciplines.
Common questions
What insurance does a building consultant need?+
Professional indemnity first, because the claim arises from advice, inspection or a certificate rather than from anything physical. Then public liability for site visits, employers' liability if you have staff, and run-off because construction defect claims surface years later. Make sure the policy contemplates certification specifically if you issue interim or practical completion certificates.
Am I liable for certifying work that turned out to be defective?+
Potentially, and it is the classic claim in this discipline. An interim certificate authorises payment, so over-valuing work that was not done leaves the employer out of pocket if the contractor then fails. The defence is procedural: inspect before certifying rather than relying on the application, record what was inspected and what was outstanding, and keep the valuation reasoning rather than just the figure.
Does my policy cover a fitness for purpose obligation?+
Almost certainly not. Professional indemnity covers negligence, meaning a failure to exercise reasonable skill and care. An appointment promising a result or warranting fitness for purpose imposes a stricter duty that most policies exclude. Those clauses appear quietly in appointments, which is why having them read before signature is worth more than almost anything else.
Do I need to declare expert witness work?+
Yes, even if it is occasional. An expert's duty is to the tribunal rather than the instructing party and a claim alleges the opinion was negligently reached, which is a different exposure from ordinary consultancy. Some wordings exclude it, some sub-limit it. It tends to start as a favour for a client and become a line of business without the policy catching up.
How long do I need run-off cover for?+
Longer than most professions, because construction defect claims can surface more than a decade after completion. Cancelling on the day you stop leaves every project you worked on unprotected, since professional indemnity responds to when the claim is made rather than when you did the work. Six years is a common minimum and longer is often appropriate on building work.
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