New dynamics

“I think a lot of people like consultants, advisers and designers were working flat out and probably overstretched in some senses. We are now coming back to reasonable capacity levels, so they are able to resource their side of things more adequately, without trying to be firefighting in that sense. They can take a bit more time.”

According to Antonia Simpson, the slower pace is also important where projects require huge pieces of machinery. “There were huge lead times on major pieces of machinery for some projects and obvious issues should anything happen – which would also have an impact on any delay-in-profit or delay-in-start-up cover they might purchase. But that could be reducing – because there are not quite so many projects, so the demand for large pieces of equipment is not so high and there is not so much pressure.”

There have also been some new insurance company entrants into the heavy civil engineering projects market, says Marsh.

“New interest and new capacity is also increasing competition in this type of project,” says Ms Simpson. “And as the number of projects has reduced slightly, it is a good thing in terms of creating competitive tension – and generally easier to place these projects into cover.”

And that is good news, says Mr Taylor. “Construction is generally a bit more technical than standard property or liability cover. It does require perhaps a greater level of resource in order to properly underwrite it. And the fact that new capacity is coming in is, from our perspective, a very good thing – because it allows us to generate greater competition.”