Contractor Insolvency Insurance - Sarnafil

[Cristian]

Hi, we are in the process of installing a brand new Sarnafil roof on our residential building (the one we have now is deteriorating because of bad ventilation, root cause: bad design). Luckily the insurance is covering the cost.

Sarnafil will provide a Materials insurance backed guarantee, but we will have to pay for Workmanship guarantee ourselves.

However, we have been told by the contractor that the workmanship guarantee they provide is not insurance backed, and that if we want we need to purchase a Contractor Insolvency Insurance.

Does anybody happen to know of good Contractor Insolvency Insurance providers that we can get in touch with to collect some quotes? The project manager sent us the specimen for an insurance provided by HomePro at around £2,000. Has anybody had to deal with them by any chances?

More generally, any advice on guarantee/insurance matters is more than welcome (we are trying to line up design, workmanship and materials guarantee backed by an insurance, for peace of mind).

Thanks in advance for your help.
Cristian

 

[KenGMac]

Cristian, good evening.

If I were you I would go back to the Insurer who has ?"indemnified" you in that the Insurer has investigated the claim you appear to have made and appear to be paying out.

Now, ---- your Insurer has to put you back to a so called "Pre-Loss Condition" that should include, that you do not need to expend any further funds to ensure that any on-going issues are dealt with which included time and material. Therefore the Insurer and their appointed "Agents" - Project Manager, Contractor Etc. need to address the issues you are making.

As an aside, this is a somewhat unusual, Accepted, Insurance Claim, normally Insurers do everything possible to void such claims.

Given your Insurer has in effect indemnified you for what [appears] to be defective material AND workmanship, at no cost to you [apart from your premium] --- which will rise next renewal-- that is why compare the market exists??? ---

Consider things?? you have been indemnified by your Insurer, OK so far, going forward, it appears that you may?? have to fund the cost of the workmanship guarantee, this situation is diametrically opposed to the position you are in now where you have made a claim and all aspects of the claim have been accepted by the insurer.

Now to bore you and go back to my para 2/. above being placed back in a Pre-Loss Condition if you have to self fund the workmanship aspect you are in effect in a worse condition than you were in Pre-Loss??

Some points to consider?

Ken

 

[^woody^]

Surely the material supplier inspects the installation when completed our during work to activate their warranty, and so there is no need for installation insurance.

If there are problems with the installation then that's dealt with by competent project management and their insurance, or installation company is not paid until the issues are resolved.

The actual contact will deal with this and these things should be written into it. If the contractor can't meet your requirements then he should not even be tendering.

 

[Cristian]

Can you please confirm if my understanding below is correct?

- Workmanship guarantee is required if, say, in a few years an issue arises and it's related to bad workmanship, correct? In that case the claim cannot be raised against Materials (Sarnafil) or Design guarantees, it needs to be raised instead against the Contractor firm and should be covered by their Workmanship guarantee.

- Now, assuming the Contractor goes out of business, we wouldn't have anyone against whom raise our claim. Hence, we need to purchase a Contractor Insolvency Guarantee. So that's why I'm searching the web (or asking for advice) about this guarantee.

Is the above correct?

Thanks
Cristian

 

[Cristian]

I had a further discussion with the contractor. They said they are using a Sarnafil certified sub-contractor, and that Sarnafil will inspect the roof after works completion to confirm the job is up to standard and release their Materials guarantee.

Would that be an implicit confirmation that Workmanship has been ok and hence we don't need any further workmanship insurance?

I'm just worried that if in the future we have some issues Sarnafil might try to blame it on workmanship and hence refuse to provide any cover. Does anybody have any experience with a similar scenario?

 

[^woody^]

I had a further discussion with the contractor. They said they are using a Sarnafil certified sub-contractor, and that Sarnafil will inspect the roof after works completion to confirm the job is up to standard and release their Materials guarantee.

Would that be an implicit confirmation that Workmanship has been ok and hence we don't need any further workmanship insurance?

Yes. All these sorts of manufacturer warranties require use of their trained/accredited contractors and inspection either during or at the end by the company rep and that activates their warranty. They will also inspect at a later period - and then you may get the option to extend the warranty up to the maximum if its not already covered for that, and for a fee.

I can't understand where the talk of the Insolvency Insurance and the workmanship has come from. If you are instructing a project manager, then it's his job (and thus his insurance) that will be responsible for any workmanship defects that he failed to spot.

I've never known the likes of Sika to renage on a claim or query an accredited installation.