Sector: Civil infrastructure  |  Programme: 34 months  |  Parties: 3-firm consortium

The situation

A three-firm consortium had been appointed to deliver a coastal defence and marine access project. Exposure to storm surge, tidal working windows and marine plant made the risk unattractive, and the consortium’s initial approach to the market returned two heavily restricted quotations and several declinatures.

What we found

The submission described the works accurately but said almost nothing about how the consortium intended to control the marine exposures. It also left the joint venture’s liability structure ambiguous, which underwriters read as unpriced uncertainty.

What we did

• Rebuilt the submission around a phased methodology, showing which works were exposed to open water and for how long in each tidal season.
• Documented the meteorological trigger protocol governing when marine plant demobilises — the single control underwriters cared most about.
• Clarified the joint venture structure and placed a single project-specific programme in the consortium’s joint names, removing overlap between the members’ annual policies.
• Split the placement into a lead layer with specialist marine appetite and an excess layer from broader construction capacity.

The result

• Contract works and third-party liability placed in full, in joint names, for the whole 34-month programme.
• Delay in start-up cover secured for the revenue-generating elements — declined entirely at first approach.
• Storm surge deductible reduced substantially against the initial indications, tied to the demobilisation protocol.
• Six markets participated where two had originally engaged.

Why it worked

The risk did not change. The consortium’s ability to explain how it manages that risk did. On difficult placements, the quality of the narrative is frequently worth more than the loss record.