An Engineer was the subject of a £1m+ claim following the collapse of a roof.
Unfortunately, there was a policy coverage issue as the Insurers maintained that the Insured was aware of the claim circumstance during a prior policy period and declined cover for the claim. We carefully assessed the situation and, following an early meeting with Insurers, it was clear to us that the Insurers were on strong ground, though the position was not as clear cut as they believed.
We assisted the Insured (acting as a prudent uninsured) in putting together a defence team to deal with the £1m plus multi-party construction claim and were actively involved in briefing and assisting the defence team to enable a letter of response defence to be filed at short notice. We subsequently attended a day long mediation to support the Insured client in the strong rebuttal of the claim. The claim was eventually dropped, resulting in a successful defence of the £1m+ multi-party construction claim at a cost of approx. £20,000!
However, our work was not yet done – we then went back to Insurers (with whom we had maintained a dialogue) and obtained a significant contribution towards the defence costs bill. Sometimes discretion is the better part of valour and by working with the Insured and focusing our attention on his claim – rather than running a parallel claim against Insurers – we are able to help protect and defend the Insured’s position successfully whilst obtaining some contribution from his Insurers as well.
Commitment to our client from first notification, through the careful management of the claim, as well as the final resolution of the claim and settlement by Insurers.