A year in risk engineering

by Paul Latimer, Managing Director, Integra Risk Services

After 24 years of adjusting complex claims, Integra has seen first-hand how the success of projects can be directly influenced by an effective programme of risk engineering activities. The launch of Integra Risk Services at the outset of 2022 enabled us to become involved in the risk engineering process more pro-actively, and offer our clients the benefit of more than two decades of experience in the field of specialty claims adjusting.

Risk services worldwide

Following on from my article in Integrated 11 which outlined the importance of risk engineering, we have been busy practising what we preach by delivering risk engineering programmes and reviews across the globe, from Panama to New Zealand and all stations in between. Our work has spanned the Construction, Mining, Infrastructure and Energy sectors (both renewable and traditional).

Project appointments have included bridges in the UK and US, underground works in Chile, an airport in the Middle East, and plant and equipment in Australia and South Africa (in one of the world’s deepest mines). We have also been engaged on a variety of power sector projects, including solar, waste and thermal plant, plus power transmission cables and battery storage in North America, the UK, Europe, Israel and the Middle East.

Benefits for insurers and the insured

Insurers have always wanted to do everything possible to assist the insured with their risk management. Risk engineering provides the perfect scenario by benefiting both parties equally, through the sharing of knowledge gained at other facilities, as well as the promotion of best practice and lessons learned. Combined, these help to reduce the chance of losses occurring in the future.

The concept is not a new one. The London Engineering Group first published their thoughts on a survey protocol in 1993 and refined this in subsequent updates in 2006 and 2015. At Integra Risk Services we focus on putting this into practice by collaborating with our engineering partners to ease the workload of time-pressured stakeholders.

Experience and expertise

We work with a wide community of engineers. As well as Integra’s own staff, we collaborate with independent engineers, and those employed directly by our insurer and broker partners. Most engineers are inquisitive people and, once they are accepted by the project team as like-minded, experienced colleagues who are there to help, site personnel will open up and take great pride in discussing ‘their’ project. The huge advantage our engineers bring is their ability to discuss issues seen at other facilities in the same sector, anticipate potential problems based on losses we have handled and build these into their conversations with project teams.

Time of engagement

Predominantly, our engineers visit projects at regular intervals or at key stages of construction/development in accordance with a risk engineering programme developed with the project’s stakeholders.

On other occasions we are engaged extension, the reactivation of silent projects or even during the pre-placement of new risks.

Our involvement enables allows an independent view of the situation surrounding the project, the opportunity to gather information and clarify the risk management measures in place (or that could be actioned), and ultimately assist with
proper negotiations.

Increasingly, we are seeing that insurers want to take a similar approach to lenders, with engineers engaged quarterly where
the project budget allows. This gives them a more accurate measure of progress against plan and strengthens their relationship with the insured.

Opportunity for all stakeholders

Integra Risk Services has been appointed on projects with placements subscribed by nearly all of the London market construction insurers, and we have provided services to construction insurers based in the US, Middle East, Asia and Australia.

Every project completed without an effective risk engineering plan is a missed opportunity for all stakeholders. Even if a project runs loss-free, the key players involved can benefit from going through the risk engineering process and applying the knowledge they have gained (both individually and corporately) to their next project. Meanwhile, failing to produce a plan can cause insurers to lose financially, as the allowance they set aside for risk engineering remains unutilised.

Experience tells us that in the world of risk engineering, managing the process and people will always be a challenge. However, I am very pleased to say that we are now delivering on our promise to provide a highly professional risk engineering service on a global scale, an invaluable product that solves significant logistical challenges for insurers, brokers and insured alike.