Passive Fire Protection and Fire Stopping Insurance
Passive fire protection is the discipline whose failures have reshaped the construction industry, and its central problem is that the work is hidden.
Hidden Work With Visible Consequences
Fire stopping around a service penetration, a cavity barrier in a facade, a fire door installation, an intumescent coating on steelwork or a compartment wall sealed back to its rating all perform only if installed exactly as the tested system requires. Once a ceiling closes, a riser is boarded or a facade is complete, nobody can see whether it was. The failure is discovered in a fire, or in an intrusive survey years later that finds a building full of breaches.
That has changed the liability landscape. Buildings are now being surveyed retrospectively, and installers from a decade ago are being asked to account for work nobody inspected at the time.
What Passive Fire Protection Insurance Covers
Professional indemnity
The cover that decides this placement. Installation certification, survey reports and compliance statements are relied on by owners and building control. Mechanics on our professional indemnity page.
Fire safety and compliance claims
Heavily restricted in the current market. Whether fire related claims are covered, excluded, sub-limited or aggregated is the first thing to establish.
Historic installations
Retrospective surveys are finding breaches in work installed years ago, and professional indemnity responds to the policy in force now.
Public liability
Injury and damage to third parties, including in occupied buildings. £10 million is routine on main contractor and remediation work.
Employers' liability
Compulsory at a £5 million statutory minimum. Work in risers and ceiling voids, at height, and spray application of coatings.
Damage during installation
Working in finished buildings and above ceilings, where services and finishes are easily damaged.
Remediation of your own installations
Where a survey finds your work non-compliant, opening up and reinstating is a cost before any fire has occurred.
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.
Fire exclusions and sub-limits
The clause to read before anything else. The market has restricted fire related cover, in several different forms, since the building safety failures.
Whether restrictions reach historic work
A restriction applying to installations already completed is a different proposition from one applying to new work.
Tested systems and substitutions
A firestop performs as tested. A substituted product, a different thickness or an untested detail is outside the test evidence entirely.
Work by others in your penetrations
A following trade cutting through completed fire stopping is common, and the record of handover decides whose breach it is.
Third party certification
Certification schemes carry audit and competence requirements, and losing accreditation affects contracts rather than producing a claim.
Run-off and continuity
Claims about work from years ago arrive now, so a gap in cover leaves everything installed in that year exposed.
Certification Is What Lets You Bid
In passive fire protection, third party certification has moved from a differentiator to a condition of working, and that changes what a business is protecting.
Main contractors, developers and building owners increasingly require installers to hold third party certification for the systems they install, and those schemes carry audit, competence and record keeping requirements that go well beyond the law. Operatives have to be assessed, installations are audited on site, and the scheme can suspend or withdraw certification. None of that produces an insurance claim. What it produces is an inability to tender, a removal from approved lists, and on a live project a main contractor looking for a replacement installer at your cost.
So the commercial protection and the technical discipline are the same thing. Operative competence assessed and recorded rather than assumed from experience, installation records kept to the standard the scheme requires rather than to the standard a site asks for, audit findings closed out with evidence, and a realistic view of which systems you are actually certificated for before accepting work that falls outside them. Installing outside your certificated scope is both a scheme breach and, if something fails, a difficult conversation about competence.
A Firestop Only Works As Tested
Passive fire protection is unusual in that the product and the installation cannot be separated, and the test evidence is the specification.
A firestop system is tested as a specific combination: a particular product, at a particular thickness, in a particular aperture, around a particular service, with a particular supporting construction. Change any of it and the test evidence no longer applies. The realistic failures are a different sealant used because the specified one was unavailable, the wrong depth, a mixed penetration not covered by any test, an aperture larger than tested, a product applied to a substrate it was not tested against, and a detail invented on site because nothing fitted.
So the discipline is evidence rather than judgement. Work only to systems with test evidence covering the actual condition, record which system was used at each location, photograph every penetration before it is closed, and refuse to improvise where no tested solution exists rather than doing something sensible looking. Where a designer's detail has no test evidence behind it, raise it in writing. On a building that is later surveyed, a contractor with photographs and system references per location is in a completely different position from one without.
Somebody Else Will Cut Through It
Fire stopping is installed early and then violated by trades who come afterwards, which is why handover records matter more here than almost anywhere.
A completed penetration seal is cut through for an extra cable, a data installer drills a new hole, a plumber enlarges an aperture, and a ceiling contractor removes a cavity barrier for access. None of it is reported and most of it is never made good. Years later a survey finds the breach, and the question is whether the installer never did it properly or whether somebody else undid it. Without a record, the installer carries it, because they are the party who was contracted to do the work.
So the handover has to be documented at the time. Photographs of every completed penetration with a location reference and the system used, a handover register issued to the principal contractor, a written statement that subsequent penetrations are not covered by your installation, and where you are asked back, a clear separation between remedial work on your own installation and making good somebody else's breach. That register is the single most valuable document a fire stopping contractor can produce when a building is surveyed.
Remediation Work Carries Its Own Exposure
A large share of this sector is now remediating other people's installations, and taking that work on has consequences worth understanding.
Compartmentation surveys and building safety remediation mean opening up existing buildings, assessing what is there, and putting it right. The contractor doing that is making judgements about what is compliant, what needs replacing and what can remain, in buildings that may be occupied, under programmes driven by funding and regulatory deadlines. A survey that missed a breach, or a judgement that something was adequate when it was not, is an advisory failure rather than a workmanship one, and it is made about a building the contractor did not build.
So scope and reporting are the protection. Survey scope defined explicitly including what was and was not accessible, findings reported with photographs and locations rather than as a schedule of quantities, a clear statement of what remains unverified, and recommendations with priorities. Where a client instructs a partial remediation, record it. And check whether survey and assessment work is inside your professional indemnity, because it is a different activity from installation and some wordings cover one and not the other.
How To Choose A Broker For Fire Stopping
The fire clause decides the placement, not the limit. We are an FCA regulated broker and will not tell you we are the best choice. These are the questions that decide it.
What exactly does the policy say about fire?
Exclusion, sub-limit, aggregate limit or building type carve-out are four different answers, all of which look the same on a schedule.
Does any restriction reach historic installations?
Retrospective surveys are finding breaches in work from years ago, and that is where the claims are coming from.
Is survey and assessment work covered?
Remediation surveys are a different activity from installation, and some wordings cover one and not the other.
Is the retroactive date intact?
A claim about a ten year old installation responds to today's policy, so a moved retroactive date strips the cover.
Could many claims arise at once?
A survey programme across a portfolio can produce multiple claims simultaneously, which an aggregate limit would not absorb.
Is run-off available and priced?
Claims arrive years after installation, so stopping without run-off leaves everything completed exposed.
Factually, here is what we do against those questions. We read the fire position first and tell you precisely what form it takes and whether it reaches historic installations, rather than reporting that fire is covered, we check survey and assessment work is inside the wording where you do it, we confirm the retroactive date has not moved, and we raise the possibility of multiple simultaneous claims from a survey programme. We are a broker, so it goes to several insurers rather than one, which matters in a market this restricted.
We also insure building control businesses, architects and fit out contractors, so fire restrictions, retroactive dates and hidden work are familiar ground here.
What Moves The Price
Every policy is priced on the business behind it. These are the things that move the premium:
- What the policy says about fire safety claims
- Whether restrictions reach historic installations
- Whether survey and assessment work is undertaken
- Whether higher-risk residential buildings feature
- Third party certification held
- Volume of historic installations completed
- The professional indemnity limit and whether it is aggregate
- Claims and circumstances notified, and survey findings
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
- The work you carry out, installation and survey split
- Whether higher-risk residential buildings are worked on
- Third party certification and audit history
- Approximate volume of historic installations
- Your handover register and photographic record practice
- Whether you remediate other contractors' installations
- Current limit, retroactive date and insurer
- Any claims, circumstances or adverse survey findings
Cover that often goes with this
The gaps we most often find sitting next to this policy.
- Fire protection contractorsThe overview page, if you do several disciplines.
- Fire alarm installersDetection, split out the same way.
- Ceiling contractorsThe void your work is hidden in, and who disturbs it.
- Building controlWho signs off, and the same fire market restrictions.
- Fit out contractorsWho cuts through completed fire stopping.
- Talk to a brokerAsk us what your policy actually says about fire.
Common questions
What insurance do passive fire protection contractors need?+
Professional indemnity above everything, and specifically a policy whose fire position you understand precisely, because the market has restricted fire related cover in several different forms since the building safety failures. Then public liability at £10 million on main contractor and remediation work, employers' liability at a £5 million statutory minimum for work in risers and voids, damage cover for working in finished buildings, and an understanding of whether survey and assessment work is inside the cover.
Is fire safety covered on a fire stopping policy?+
Sometimes, often partly, and this is the clause to read before the limit. The restrictions take several forms and any can sit behind an acceptable premium: an outright exclusion of fire safety or compliance claims, an exclusion reaching work already installed, a sub-limit far below the main limit, an aggregate limit shared across all fire claims, and carve-outs for particular building types especially higher-risk residential. So establish which claims are excluded, whether the restriction reaches historic installations, and whether the limit is aggregate.
Why does a substituted product matter so much?+
Because a firestop performs as tested and nothing more. A system is tested as a specific combination: a particular product, at a particular thickness, in a particular aperture, around a particular service, with a particular supporting construction. Change any of it and the test evidence no longer applies. So the realistic failures are a different sealant because the specified one was unavailable, the wrong depth, a mixed penetration no test covers, an oversized aperture, or a detail invented on site. Work only to systems with test evidence for the actual condition.
What if another trade cuts through our fire stopping?+
It happens constantly and without a record you carry it, because you were the party contracted to do the work. A completed seal gets cut for an extra cable, a data installer drills a new hole, a plumber enlarges an aperture, and a ceiling contractor removes a cavity barrier for access, none of it reported or made good. So photograph every completed penetration with a location reference and the system used, issue a handover register to the principal contractor, and state in writing that subsequent penetrations are not covered by your installation.
Are we exposed for installations from years ago?+
Yes, and that is where the claims are currently coming from. Buildings are being surveyed retrospectively and intrusive surveys are finding breaches in work installed a decade ago that nobody inspected at the time. Professional indemnity responds to the policy in force when the claim is made rather than when the work was done, so the retroactive date must be intact and continuity matters. A survey programme across a portfolio can also produce many claims at once, which is why an aggregate limit is worth checking rather than assuming.
Who insures passive fire protection contractors in the UK?+
A restricted market, which is the central fact about this placement. Insurer appetite contracted sharply after the building safety failures, several withdrew, and those remaining write it cautiously with fire restrictions as standard. It is placed through brokers. What separates placements is the precise form of the fire restriction, whether it reaches historic installations, whether survey and assessment work is covered, whether the retroactive date is intact, and whether the limit is aggregate or each and every.
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