When a company starts a construction or renovation project the subject of Builders’ Risk inevitably comes up. It could be when the Construction Management Agreement (CMA) is being drafted or when reviewing lender insurance requirements, but it is bound to happen.

An often misunderstood insurance coverage that is very important for a business, is Hired and Non-Owned Automobile ("HNOA") coverage. Most of the time, the company that is considering such coverage doesn’t think it has exposure to this particular risk since they do not own any automobiles. This could not be further from the truth... Recently, there was a tragic accident in NYC Times Square, where a delivery vehicle on its way to a jobsite fatally injured a pedestrian. 

As, risk managers, we often get asked by clients, “what is the appropriate period to retain insurance policies” - the easy answer is “forever”... You are probably thinking that guidance seems a bit excessive, however quite a few types of policies, such as commercial general liability, may be triggered long after the policy has expired and thus should not be discarded but rather meticulously tracked.

As September approaches, college students are collecting textbooks, polishing up their class schedules, and shopping for that perfect dorm room setup. Insurance is probably not the first thing on their minds. Unless - you are a Risk Management undergrad at Temple University. ALS Intern, Jason Glickstein, outlines why insurance should be on every college students’ back to school checklist.

Three Questions for Managing Principal, Albert Sica, of The ALS Group

For the last 12-18 months commercial insurance rates have been rising and many business leaders are ill-equipped to either understand why or what they can do about it. Recently, this was captured in a good article in The Wall Street Journal and we thought we would explore this a bit more.

Business leaders often rely on a broker, whose primary role is to “sell” insurance to guide them through a complex mix of their company’s exposures, insurance policy language (including exclusions) and what can be done to, both, mitigate risk and the cost of coverage. Understanding the financial impact of a risk on a company’s balance sheet or earnings statement and what can be done to protect against that uncertainty is key to complex questions it is now essential to explore.

Obtaining the clarity with both a contract and the related insurance compliance has turned into one of the more daunting tasks for "upstream" counter-parties such as Landlords, Owners, etc. When reviewing vendor contracts there are several issues that Landlords, Owners, etc. should be mindful of, such as:

There may be a number of times that you’ve considered evaluating your company’s insurance broker for various reasons, including:

• Ensuring a sense of confidence and peace of mind that the broker who is working with you is, in fact, working in your best interests and delivering the best solutions for your firm’s coverage;
• Conducting your standard vendor evaluation, or;
• You are frankly not satisfied with your current insurance broker’s services and looking to identify alternatives.

The New Jersey Supreme Court recently reversed its position on coverage for construction defects, affirming the Appellate Division’s decision that consequential damages caused by a subcontractor’s faulty workmanship constituted “property damage” caused by an “occurrence” under the plain language of the developer’s Commercial General Liability (CGL) policy.

A critical step of any contractual agreement between property owners and managers and their vendors (including contractors) is a careful review of the provisions affecting insurance and legal indemnification.  The difference between a thoughtfully negotiated contract and one that is “off the shelf” or, even worse, none at all may be the difference between accepting liability where never intended.

It is vital to understand specific terms found in insurance policies. The inability to do so may result in an unwanted surprise such as a lower than anticipated claim payment following a loss.  For example, Actual Cash Value (ACV) and Replacement Cost (RC) are two different methods of valuation that will determine how the insured is indemnified.