Learn to love your insurer

Contractors and insurance underwriters need to get closer to each other and to understand each other's problems if the industry's insurance crisis is to be overcome.

This was the conclusion drawn from a forum organised by broker Heath Lambert, its contractor clients and underwriters. The insurers and re-insurers present stressed the importance of contractors taking a pro-active approach to risk management and that this approach should be embraced all the way through the supply chain.

Risk management should also be incorporated into the design and planing processes.

The forum heard the suggestion that insurers and brokers could help to spread best practice and assist in the development of risk management at site level.

Indeed site visits could be one way of improving construction's relationship with the insurance industry. "It was felt that a deeper, grass roots involvement on the part of underwriters with, for example, greater use of site visits could lead to a greater understanding of individual projects and have effects on the availability of cover and the rating applied," a Heath Lambert spokesman said.