Higher-risk buildings: what HRB work does to your insurance

What counts as a higher-risk building

For the design and construction regime, a higher-risk building is a building of at least 18 metres in height or with at least seven storeys, containing at least two residential units. Certain building types are excluded from the definition, including hotels, secure residential institutions and military barracks. Hospitals and care homes meeting the height or storey criteria fall within the design and construction regime but are outside the separate in-occupation regime, which is dealt with under fire safety legislation.

That is the statutory shape as at August 2026. If a project is close to the threshold, the classification question is one for your legal or building control advisers rather than your broker — but the answer changes the insurance conversation materially, so it is worth settling early.

The gateways, in insurance terms

The regime runs through three control points. Gateway 1 sits at the planning stage and brings fire safety considerations into the planning application. Gateway 2 is building control approval, which must be obtained before construction work starts; for higher-risk buildings the Building Safety Regulator is the building control authority rather than the local authority or an approved inspector. Gateway 3 is the completion stage, where a completion certificate is needed before the building can be occupied.

Alongside the gateways sits the golden thread: a requirement to create, maintain and hand over structured building information.

Two consequences follow for insurance. The first is programme risk. Gateway 2 in particular has been the subject of well-documented delays and backlogs, and the resulting programme uncertainty is a commercial exposure for firms whose fees, resourcing and contractual obligations assume a timetable. It is worth checking what your contracts say about delay, and what your own business interruption and contract wordings assume.

The second is more useful. The gateway regime generates exactly the kind of durable, structured record that makes a professional indemnity claim defensible years later. Firms working properly within the regime end up with better evidence about what they designed, what they were told and what they warned about than firms working outside it. That is an underwriting asset, and it should be presented as one.

What underwriters ask about HRB work

Expect to be asked whether you work on higher-risk buildings at all, and if so what proportion of your workload it represents and in what capacity. Expect questions about the dutyholder roles you hold — principal designer or principal contractor under the Building Regulations — and how you assess competence for them. Expect questions about external wall systems, cladding, insulation, fire-stopping and compartmentation, and about who is responsible for those packages on your projects.

Expect questions about appointments: whether your scope is documented, whether net contribution clauses are used, what collateral warranties you have given and to whom, and what obligations those warranties impose about maintaining insurance and for how long. And expect questions about records — what you keep, in what form, and for how long.

The pattern is consistent. Underwriters are trying to establish two things: how much of the fire and structural safety exposure on a higher-risk building could land on you, and how well you would be able to defend yourself if it did.

Cover implications, honestly stated

Higher-risk building work is where the market’s restrictions concentrate. Fire safety exclusions, external wall system exclusions, height conditions and sub-limits are all common, and they are aimed at exactly this class of work. A firm should not expect to take on HRB projects and find its professional indemnity unchanged.

It is also where the claims-made problem is at its sharpest. Because professional indemnity responds on the policy in force when the claim is made, and because Defective Premises Act liability now reaches back many years — 15 years for claims accruing on or after 28 June 2022, and 30 years where the right of action accrued before that date — a firm can be exposed on residential high-rise work it completed long before any of the current restrictions were written. The exposure is retrospective; the cover is annual.

Beyond professional indemnity, HRB work touches other lines. Contract works and existing structures cover on occupied or partially occupied buildings, public and products liability on remediation and envelope work, and contractual insurance obligations imported through collateral warranties and funding agreements all deserve checking together rather than separately.

What Apex does with this

We are not going to tell you we can strip fire safety exclusions out of a construction PI policy for a firm doing higher-risk building work. That is not how the market is behaving.

What we can do is make sure your submission reflects the actual shape of your HRB involvement rather than a worst-case reading of it, that the discipline the gateway regime imposes on you is visible to underwriters as evidence rather than invisible, and that the restrictions you end up with are the narrowest available rather than the first ones offered. On a class of work this scrutinised, presentation is most of the job.

Frequently asked questions

What is a higher-risk building?

For the design and construction regime it is a building of at least 18 metres in height or with at least seven storeys that contains at least two residential units. Hotels, secure residential institutions and military barracks are among the excluded building types. This is a general description of the definition as at August 2026, not a classification of any particular project.

Who is the Building Safety Regulator now?

Since 27 January 2026 the Building Safety Regulator has operated as an independent executive non-departmental public body sponsored by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, rather than sitting within the Health and Safety Executive. Existing Gateway 2 and Gateway 3 applications transferred to the new body, and the HSE has continued to support the handover.

Will working on higher-risk buildings affect my PI premium?

It is likely to affect your terms as a whole, not just the premium. Expect closer underwriting scrutiny and a greater likelihood of fire safety, cladding or building-height restrictions, because this is the class of work those restrictions were written for. How much it affects you depends heavily on your role, the packages you are responsible for and the quality of your presentation.

Do the gateway delays affect my insurance?

Not directly, but the commercial consequences can. Programme uncertainty at Gateway 2 affects resourcing, cash flow and contractual delay exposure, so it is worth reviewing what your appointments and contracts say about delay and what your own policies assume about project timetables.

This page is insurance information for UK businesses, not legal or regulatory advice. It describes how the Building Safety Act landscape is affecting professional indemnity cover and what underwriters are asking; it does not tell you how to comply with the legislation. For advice on your duties under the Act, take specialist legal advice. Position stated as at August 2026.

Apex Insurance Brokers Limited is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FRN 724952). This page is general information, not advice on a specific policy.