Project-wide insurance is to be trialled by public sector bodies in the hope that it will be adopted throughout the construction industry.

The move follows a meeting between the Office of Government Commerce, the Treasury, the Association of Consulting and Engineering and the Specialist Engineering Contractors’ Group, where it was agreed that pilot projects would be sought to trial the scheme.

The Association of Consulting and Engineering has been championing project insurance for a number of years and has had talks with a number of government agencies about adopting it.

Norah Fung, legal director of ACE, welcomes the news that it has reached this stage. “It is vital if you are to have true collaboration on a scheme that you have whole-project insurance,” she says. “It also brings about greater efficiency among the team as a whole.”

Project insurance was one of the recommendations to come out of a recent National Audit Office report ‘Improving public services through better construction’ and the Gershon review .

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