Construction: what are the compulsory and optional insurances?

Published on : 25 April 20223 min reading time
The building construction market offers various types of insurance. It is therefore important to know which insurance is compulsory or even optional for one work or another. You should know however that insurance always acts as a liability, regardless of the field of activity.

The importance of insurance in the construction industry

In the construction sector, insurance enables refunds in the event of damage occurring during the work. The same applies to rehabilitation and repair work. It is therefore important to take out construction insurance. The aim here is to avoid the risk of poor workmanship. This guarantee covers the construction company and protects it from material damage caused during the work. Generally speaking, it is a question of damage to work insurance or ten-year civil liability insurance. The objectives of these types of insurance are to cover the construction work and to reassure financial investors.

There are mainly two types of compulsory insurance for construction workers, namely damage to work insurance and ten-year civil liability insurance. Note that the insurance Code requires the builder to take out ten-year insurance as soon as the building site is set up. In addition to this, compliance with the law carries a prison sentence and a heavy fine. Ten-year liability protects those involved in the construction industry a damage that jeopardises the solidity of the work occurs. The building might become uninhabitable for a more or less long period. The damage to work insurance, on the other hand, provides for a refund of the full cost of repairs. This concerns damage suffered at the time of the ten-year guarantee. The owner of the building is entitled to take out insurance, as is the vendor or agent, but also the property manager.

Some facts about optional insurance you must be familiar with

Some risks are not covered by compulsory construction insurance. For instance, minor damage is not included in the list of damage covered by this type of guarantee since it is not considered to be of a ten-year nature. Therefore, the optional insurance policy covers the unprotected risks. This is also the case for builders not covered by compulsory insurance when they want to secure their activities. Basically, optional insurance offers a much bigger degree of protection. In other words, building and public works specialists only take out insurance to benefit from a certain degree of guarantees and cover.

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