Imagine a world where clients could procure a building knowing it wasn’t going to go over budget, and the contractor wasn’t going to lose money building it. In this joyful, sun-kissed land, designers, contractors and specialist contractors work collaboratively, generating innovative, clever new ideas and get paid handsomely for their time. Meanwhile, construction lawyers are reduced to begging on the streets.

This fantasy isn’t as far-fetched as it sounds. A new form of procurement aims to break the impasse of wafer-thin margins, a culture of dumping risk onto the next person along the supply chain, stifling innovation and a poor quality product. Called integrated project insurance (IPI), this fresh approach has benefits for the whole supply chain and the early indications are that it is catching on.

IPI offers much more than the dry title suggests. As the name implies, it offers public indemnity insurance for design teams and all-risk insurance for contractors with defects liability. The big plus is that IPI also covers cost overruns, which should be hugely appealing to clients and contractors.

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