Structural Engineer insurance

Locornwall

What does indemnity insurance cover when a structural engineer does a report on a house? In what situations would the insurance be used?

eddddy

The Structural Engineer's Professional Indemnity Insurance would cover the cost of any claims you make against the engineer.

• You might make a claim because the Engineer makes a mistake, and you lose money as a result.

• Or maybe the Engineer gives you advice which you follow, and lose money as a result.

So an example might be that the Engineer says that the house is structurally sound, so you buy the house, and find that it isn't structurally sound - and needs £50,000 of structural repairs.

So you might claim £50,000 in damages from the structural engineer. The insurance company would defend the claim, and would probably pay you the £50,000 if you win.

Locornwall

My understanding however is that there report is normally worded to try and negate any definitive advice in order to deter potential claims?

eddddy

Locornwall wrote: »

My understanding however is that there report is normally worded to try and negate any definitive advice in order to deter potential claims?

I don't think that's really the case.

You would get a Structural Engineer's report in order to investigate structural problems, and get advice on how to fix the problems.


For example, if you can see that the walls on a house are bowing, it would be fairly pointless to get a structural engineer to write a report just saying:

"Yes - the walls are bowing".

You would expect something like:

"The walls are bowing because of roof spread. It appears that the original slate roof tiles have been replaced by heavier concrete tiles. The heavier tiles are very likely to be the cause of the bowing.

The easiest way of rectifying the problem would be to replace the concrete tiles with artificial slate tiles.

etc etc

Tom99

Its not just a case of finding an unreported problem later on, you would have to show that the engineer was negligent ie that an average engineer would have spotted the problem.
The engineer's professional indemnity insurance is not some sort of guarantee against future problems coming to light.

davidmcn

It works in the same way as the professional indemnity insurance for your surveyor, solicitor or doctor. There's nothing special about the principles when it comes to structural engineers.