Analysis: Are we moving towards market failure for high-rise buildings?
PI and property rates were hit hard following the Grenfell fire horror. Martin Friel investigates the wider insurance implications but is met with deafening silence from providers as brokers sound the alarm.
Market failure is never a good look, for any sector, in any circumstances. Yet that is exactly what has happened in the professional indemnity (PI) market for fire safety surveyors and engineers.
While there are well-publicised issues in the wider liability market, what has done it for this sector is the introduction, by the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) in December 2019, of the EWS1 certificate. Initially designed to reassure lenders of a building’s safety (or otherwise) in a
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