The construction insurance space has faced numerous challenges over the last couple of years, with the COVID-19 pandemic and supply-chain issues throwing up roadblocks in the sector. Bill Creedon, global head of construction at Willis Towers Watson, recently chatted with IBTV about the challenges COVID-19 has presented to the construction insurance industry.
“We’ve been now, what, almost three years that we’ve been dealing with this?” Creedon said. “And, you, now, at first, let’s remember – construction, our industry, never stopped. They continued, they kept going, they were essential. It did cause, maybe, some delays that were put out there … but around that, they never stopped working.”
Creedon said that the construction space was “an industry known for its creativity and its being able to adapt.”
He said the industry quickly put protocols in place that would allow it to safely move forward.
“Those are still in place today,” he said. “They’re almost becoming a given [on] these project sites. They’re doing all the normal controls that they should. I think they’ve managed COVID – I think they’ve brought it to where it’s just part of it.”
However, he said, the pandemic did create delays.
“If you put that to an insurance perspective, it also hit on where brokers and their client partners have been looking at putting together extensions on project programs,” Creedon said. “And that also has become a little bit of an issue for the industry underwriters looking at that.”
Creedon also stressed that the pandemic hit different parts of the sector in different ways.
“So if you were focusing on office space or commercial or hotels, that space has been slowed, With COVID, it definitely hit a speed bump,” he said. “Conversely, if you’re a contractor and you’re focusing on healthcare or data centers or the like, those have seen an incredible growth.”
