Utilities Contractor and Street Works Insurance

Every service strike investigation reaches the same question, and the answer is almost always that somebody trusted a drawing.

Utility records show approximate positions and depths, and they are frequently wrong: a cable moved during previous works, a main laid shallower than standard because of an obstruction, a service added later and never recorded, a duct that is not where the plan shows, or records that predate a road being resurfaced and raised. A machine or a breaker working to a plan rather than to a located position strikes something, and with electricity the person holding the tool takes a flash burn.

So the sequence is records, scan, trial hole, then dig, and it is not negotiable. Records obtained for every utility rather than the one you are working for, scanning carried out by somebody trained with equipment that is calibrated, positions marked and the marks maintained as work progresses, trial holes dug by hand to prove depth before any mechanical excavation near a located service, and hand digging within the safe distance. Keep the scanning records and the marked up plans, because a strike on a job where nobody scanned is indefensible and the utility will pursue it.

A struck service produces a small physical loss and a potentially very large consequential one, and the cover has to reach the second.

Repairing a damaged cable or main is a contained cost. What follows is not: supply lost to homes and businesses, a network operator's emergency response and its own charges, a hospital or a water treatment works on standby generation, a factory with a batch ruined, a street of shops with freezers defrosting, and in a telecoms strike a business with no connectivity. Those third parties have no relationship with you, and they will pursue whoever dug the hole.

So establish how the policy treats the consequences rather than just the damage. Whether the network operator's costs are covered, whether third party losses from loss of supply are within the cover, and whether there is a separate limit for it. Then the practical mitigation, which is the same as the prevention: locate properly, and when something is struck, follow the emergency procedure immediately rather than assessing it first, because a gas strike handled slowly becomes an evacuation and an electrical strike handled slowly becomes a second casualty.

Street works put an excavation into the route people walk, and the people most affected are the least able to deal with it.

A footway excavation is used by wheelchair users, people with pushchairs, people who are blind or partially sighted, and elderly people, all of whom rely on the pavement being predictable. Barriers that are moved, a ramp with a lip, a tactile surface disturbed, a signed diversion into a road, a plate that rocks, or an unlit excavation at night produce falls, and the injuries are serious because the people are vulnerable. These are among the most frequent public liability claims in street works.

So the protection standard is higher than it feels. Continuous barriers rather than cones, a safe pedestrian route with adequate width maintained rather than a diversion into the carriageway, tapping rails for visually impaired pedestrians, ramps and plates that are secured and level, lighting at night, and a check of the arrangement at the end of every shift including weekends when nobody is on site. Photograph the arrangement when you leave. A claim about a footway excavation is defended on what the site looked like when nobody was there.

Street works carry an obligation that outlasts the job, and it is the part most likely to produce a claim long after the invoice.

A reinstatement has to be made to a specified standard and it carries a guarantee period. If it settles, cracks, ravels, or stands proud or low of the surrounding surface, the contractor returns to put it right, and that applies whether the failure is from compaction, material, the trench itself or an unrelated movement. Meanwhile a settled reinstatement in a footway is a trip hazard generating claims from pedestrians, and a sunken one in a carriageway affects vehicles.

So the compaction and the material are not corners to cut, because they are the things that fail. Backfill in layers to the specification rather than filled and rolled, the right material for the depth, compaction plant appropriate to the layer, and a finished level that matches rather than nearly matches. Record what was used and how it was compacted, because a defect two years later is examined against the reinstatement rather than against anything else, and a contractor with records of the layers is in a position to argue about cause.

Service strikes and their consequences decide this one. We are an FCA regulated broker and will not tell you we are the best choice. These are the questions that decide it.