Construction All Risk Insurance for Brokers: Capacity, Placement and What Exance Underwrites
You have a client whose project doesn’t fit the standard market’s box.
Maybe it’s a mixed-use scheme with a cladding system that makes underwriters nervous or a design-and-build contract where the liability position isn’t as clean as a JCT standard form.
Perhaps the contractor is using a construction method that’s perfectly sound but unfamiliar to a facility underwriter.
Whatever the trigger, the result is the same: thin quotes, heavy restrictions, or a straight decline from the markets you’d normally turn to first.
This is where a Managing General Agent (MGA) like Exance earns its place in your panel. At Exance – we place the Construction All Risk (CAR) that standard markets won’t quote on.
This guide sets out; what CAR covers, why complex construction risk needs specialist placement in 2026, what a strong submission looks like, and how a construction all risk broker gets a risk in front of an underwriter.
What Does CAR Cover?
Construction All Risk insurance protects a construction project against physical loss or damage to the works themselves, alongside the wider risk exposure a construction project site creates.
In practice, it broadly covers:
- Works under construction
- Contractor’s plant and equipment on site
- Materials in transit or stored at the site before they are used
Most CAR policies also include a liability section that protects the contractor and other insured parties against third-party injury, or property damage claims arising from the works. For a construction industry insurance brokers, this is usually the section of the policy clients ask about first.
Why Specialist Construction Insurance Placement Matters in 2026
Standard market appetite for construction risk has tightened in the UK. This is mainly driven by a handful of specific exposures, instead of a general hardening.
Fire risk profiles are under closer scrutiny than they were two or three years ago, and any project with an unusual building form or occupancy mix now attracts more questions before a quote is even considered.
A shift, that is directly linked with the Building Safety Regulator’s expanded oversight of higher-risk building categories since the Building Safety Act 2022.
Cladding is one of the most complex risks to place.
Many markets will not engage with a risk at all if certain cladding systems have existed, regardless of how current works are specified.
A gap serious enough that the Association of British Insurers established a dedicated reinsurance facility in response to standard market capacity drying up for these risks.
Underwriters now scrutinise contractor financial health. They’re adding credit risk and insolvency exposure to the pricing. This means that a contractor with a thin balance sheet, a recent run of late completions, or a supply chain under visible strain will struggle to get a competitive quote. The market is underwriting the numbers, not the relationship.
None of these factors necessarily make a project uninsurable.
They make it a risk that needs an underwriter with the appetite and the technical depth to assess the actual exposure, rather than a market that screens it out on the first pass.
The Cover Exance Underwrites
Single Project and Annual CAR
Exance underwrites both:
- Single project CAR, for a defined scheme with its own contract value, timeline and risk profile, and;
- Annual CAR facilities for contractors and developers running a continuous programme of works.
Annual facilities suit clients who need consistent capacity across multiple sites without renegotiating terms project by project, while single project placements are built around the specifics of one contract.
The Risk Types Exance Accepts
Exance’s appetite is built around the projects standard markets tend to push away.
This includes schemes with cladding or fire-engineered facades and design-and-build contracts with a non-standard liability allocation.
This also includes refurbishment and conversion works involving existing structures of uncertain condition, and projects using novel or modern methods of construction that fall outside a facility underwriter’s tick-box criteria.
What Makes a Risk Within Appetite
A risk lands within appetite when the exposure is understood, not when it’s simple.
At Exance, we look for a clear contractual structure, a contractor with a track record and financial standing that supports the contract value.
Where fire or structural risk is present – evidence that it’s been assessed and designed– for rather than left as an open question. Complexity is expected; ambiguity is what pushes a submission out of appetite.
What a Good CAR Submission Includes
The quality of the submission has a direct effect on how quickly and how competitively a risk is underwritten. A successful submission is one that gives the underwriter what they need immediately. Details to include are:
- Contract details: the form of contract, contract value; start and completion dates
- Contractor profile: trading history, financial standing, and relevant project experience
- Project timeline: programme of works, including phasing where the project isn’t a single continuous build
- Design liability position: who holds design responsibility, and how it’s allocated between contractor, employer and consultants
- Fire strategy (where relevant): the approach to fire safety design, cladding specification, and any third-party sign-off already in place
The more complete the initial submission, the less time the underwriter has to spend chasing for details that should have been included in the submission from the start.
How to Place a Risk with Exance
For a CAR insurance construction broker trying to place a complex risk, direct underwriter access changes the placement timeline.
Exance is built around direct specialist underwriter access. As a broker you deal directly with the person assessing the risk, not a submission queue that filters everything through a call centre before it reaches someone with authority to quote.
For complex CAR risk, that direct line matters: you can talk through an unusual exposure before committing time to a full submission, rather than finding out three weeks later that the risk was never in appetite.
Response times reflect that structure. Straightforward single project submissions with a complete information typically turn around within a few working days.
More complex or unusual risks may need a short conversation with the underwriter first, but brokers usually get a clear steer on appetite early on in the process.
To place business with Exance, a simple registration process is required. You can find registration details and the full broker proposition here.
If you have a construction risk that’s stalled or something new in the pipeline, bring it to Exance. Get in touch with our team today, register or speak directly to one of our underwriters.