Burns & Wilcox's ProConstruct provides tailored professional liability coverage for contractors and designers, including valuable contract review services to help address potential litigation concerns from project delays.
PRODUCT: ProConstruct
COMPANY: Burns & Wilcox
BEST RATING: A XV
AVAILABILITY: Appointed agents and brokers only.
FOCUS: Even though the construction industry has felt less of an impact from COVID-19 than other parts of the economy, it has still been affected in various ways. Shutdowns on activity led to subcontractors letting their insurance policies lapse or canceling them completely, creating coverage gaps, staffing concerns and risk management practices.
The ProConstruct product complements the robust suite of products Burns & Wilcox currently offers while addressing the needs of its brokers, agents and partners. In addition to providing tailored professional liability coverage for contractors and designers, ProConstruct also includes valuable contract review services that can help the contractor address potential litigation concerns from project delays arising outside factors, such as a pandemic or natural disaster.
“ProConstruct is an exclusive coverage form and has a set of industry-leading endorsements developed in-house by Burns & Wilcox Professional Liability Practice Group to address the many exposures facing contractors, engineers and design professionals in the construction and manufacturing industries," says Michelle Picklesimer, underwriting director, Burns & Wilcox.
“It gives insureds what they need—broad coverage and a form with simplistic language—so it's clear what they're agreeing to and so disclaimers don't fall through the cracks," she adds.
COVERAGE DETAILS: Coverages include professional liability; pollution liability; technology products and services; computer network security; privacy liability; and media and advertising liability. A faulty workmanship carveback is included automatically in the form, protective indemnity and pollution liability enhancements such as owned site storage, in transit, emergency clean up and non-owned site storage are also available.
“Most standard professional liability and some architects & engineers policies do not provide full coverage for bodily injury, property damage or pollution liability, and often the general liability policy includes a total pollution exclusion," Picklesimer says. “The ProConstruct's policy addresses these gaps, including negligence in managerial oversight resulting in faulty workmanship or project delays by including the administrative duties of the general contractor in the definition of professional services."
“The ProConstruct policy will also respond to design services provided by a contractor under a design/build contract, where other policies require a licensed architect or engineer to respond," she adds. “The ProConstruct policy was truly designed with the contractor in mind."
UNDERWRITING: Various underwriting factors are considered, including discipline, project type, state, billings or construction values, and risk management practices.
MINIMUM PREMIUM: $4,000 for commercial general contractors and $1,500 for other classes of insured.
TARGET: Contractors, engineers and design professionals.
COVERAGE AVAILABILITY: All U.S. states.
CONTACT: Michelle Picklesimer, underwriting director, Burns & Wilcox; 770-283-1163.
Will Jones is IA editor-in-chief.
This article was published in the December 2020 issue of Independent Agent magazine.
