Category: Specialist underwriting · Reviewed by Al Jabbar, Broker · Specialist Risks · Last reviewed May 2026
A 55-fee-earner architectural practice in the North West came to renewal in Q1 2026 with what its incumbent insurer described as a “modest tightening” of its fire safety exclusion. The previous wording carved out external wall systems on residential buildings exceeding 18 metres. The proposed renewal wording extended the exclusion to “any work involving fire safety, fire engineering, fire risk assessment or the specification, design or inspection of external wall systems, internal compartmentation, or means of escape, on any building intended for residential occupation, regardless of height”. The practice’s fee income from residential schemes was around 35%. Read literally, the new wording stripped cover from a third of the firm’s workload. The broker’s response — pushing back on scope, drafting bespoke carve-backs, evidencing the firm’s project register and competence framework — is the kind of work that now defines fire safety negotiation at PI renewal. This article sets out how the market got here and how specialist brokers approach the wording in 2026.
The Grenfell Tower fire in June 2017 reshaped UK professional indemnity underwriting more profoundly than any single event in living memory. In the immediate aftermath, fire safety risk sat as a footnote in most architects’, surveyors’ and engineers’ policies — typically picked up by the general indemnity wording with no specific exclusion. By 2019, that footnote had become a recognised underwriting workstream. By 2021, after a sustained period of hard-market conditions, fire-related cover had separated entirely from the rest of the PI portfolio at most insurers writing construction professionals.
Three pressures drove the shift. First, the volume of claims notified — particularly under the Defective Premises Act 1972 — against original designers, building control bodies and Approved Inspectors who had touched residential schemes with combustible cladding or compartmentation defects. Second, the reinsurance market, which began reserving heavily for “construction professional” treaties from 2019 onwards. Third, the regulatory trajectory: the Hackitt Review, the draft Building Safety Bill, and ultimately the Building Safety Act 2022. Each step signalled that liability for past work would expand, not contract.
By 2023, the market had broadly bifurcated. Insurers continuing to write construction professionals offered either a general PI policy with a hard fire safety exclusion, or a narrower carved-out cover with elevated premium, higher excesses and tighter conditions. Lloyd’s syndicates active in the sub-segment publicly reported elevated loss ratios for the construction professional class through 2022 and 2023, with some modest softening reported through 2024 and into 2025 as remediation programmes progressed and risk registers stabilised.
Specialist brokers reviewing renewal terms in 2026 will typically see one of three structural approaches to fire safety risk.
The widest pattern, common where the insurer has reduced its appetite for the class generally, excludes all liability arising from or in connection with fire, fire safety, the specification or design of materials with respect to fire performance, external wall systems, compartmentation, means of escape, fire risk assessment, and fire engineering. The clause is drafted to cover both first-party loss and third-party claims, regardless of when the underlying work was carried out. Brokers should read these clauses against the policy’s retroactive date and aggregation language; a blanket exclusion that bites on “any claim arising from” can sweep up claims where fire safety is only one head of loss in a broader design liability action.
The middle-ground approach excludes liability connected to buildings meeting the Higher-Risk Building (HRB) definition under the Building Safety Act 2022 — broadly, buildings at least 18 metres or seven storeys containing at least two residential units. The wording sometimes references the Building Safety Regulator’s definition directly; sometimes it references the BSA threshold and a list of equivalent building types. Brokers should check whether the exclusion uses the BSA’s “occupied HRB” trigger or a wider “any building meeting the height criterion” trigger, since the practical scope differs materially.
The most accommodating structure preserves cover but materially restricts the cap and raises the firm’s retention. Sub-limits in the low single-digit millions are common, with excesses scaled to the firm’s fee income from relevant work. Aggregation language is usually tightened: claims arising from a common cause, project, building or design are treated as one claim against the sub-limit. This structure is most commonly seen where the firm has demonstrable competence governance — declared expertise, registered membership of bodies such as the Institution of Fire Engineers, and a clean claims record.
Across the three patterns, certain risk classes are now consistently outside primary PI cover or available only on declared and sub-limited terms.
External wall systems on residential buildings — particularly any system involving combustible insulation, ACM or other rainscreen cladding products — sit firmly outside standard cover. Compartmentation work in HRBs is similarly excluded across most of the market. Recladding remediation design is treated as a discrete risk class; insurers expect to see it declared as a separate fee category at proposal stage, and a number of insurers will not write it at all. Fire risk assessments on HRBs, where carried out by professionals without an explicit specialism declaration, are usually excluded; where the firm employs IFE-registered or EngC-listed fire engineers, narrower cover is typically negotiable.
EWS1 form signatory work has become a discrete underwriting question. A firm that signed EWS1 forms during the 2019-2022 backlog will face specific questions about which buildings were assessed, what reliance the signatory placed on contractor or installer evidence, and what residual cover the firm carries for those past acts. This intersects directly with run-off and retroactive cover considerations — see the related discussion in Cladding exposure in PI insurance: the 2026 market position.
Insurers writing the construction professional class in 2026 are not refusing fire-related cover outright; they are pricing and conditioning it. Several categories remain insurable on reasonable terms.
Low-rise residential work — broadly, buildings outside the HRB definition, without combustible external wall systems, and without complex compartmentation — is usually within standard cover. Insurers will, however, expect a project register that demonstrates the firm understands which projects fall on which side of the HRB line.
Fire engineering on commercial, industrial and education buildings is generally available where the firm declares its fire engineering competence and resources. Insurers expect to see chartered fire engineers (CEng MIFireE or equivalent) leading the work, professional indemnity-relevant training records, and a documented design review process.
The work of AAI-IFE-registered fire engineers — those holding the Institution of Fire Engineers’ Approved Assessor accreditation — is treated as a distinguishable category. Insurers will generally extend cover for declared AAI work scope where the firm can evidence the accreditation, the scope of work carried out, and the building types involved.
Building Control work carried out by Registered Building Control Approvers under the BSA’s reformed regime is treated as a separate sub-class. The transition from the previous Approved Inspector regime in late 2023 introduced new competence and registration requirements, and insurers’ wordings increasingly reference the new regulatory architecture explicitly.
The market does not approach fire safety risk as a single homogeneous exposure. Each construction profession sits in a distinct underwriting box.
Architectural practices are treated as design-liable for both the building envelope and, frequently, for the overall design coordination of fire safety strategy. RIBA’s plan of work and post-Grenfell competence guidance is referenced in many insurers’ proposal questions. The key underwriting question for architects is whether they retain design responsibility for fire safety strategy or delegate it to a specialist fire engineer, and whether that delegation is properly documented in the appointment.
Building surveyors face exposure across condition reports, defects diagnosis, EWS1 work and reinstatement cost assessment. RICS guidance on EWS1 issued from 2019 onwards has gone through multiple iterations, and insurers will ask about which version of the guidance the firm relied on, when, and for which buildings. The EWS1 signatory population is the discrete underwriting concern.
Fire engineers are the specialist class; cover for declared fire engineering scope is generally available where the firm can evidence chartered membership and a documented competence framework. The Institution of Fire Engineers’ Engineering Council registration, combined with the AAI scheme, is what insurers look for. Bespoke wordings carving cover specifically around declared fire engineering work are the norm for this profession.
M&E consultants face fire exposure principally through smoke control systems, fire alarm and detection design, sprinkler design and fire-stopping at services penetrations. CIBSE guidance, particularly Guide E on fire safety engineering, sits behind much of the underwriting conversation. Most M&E firms can secure cover for their M&E fire systems work; the issue arises where a firm has taken on broader fire engineering scope without commensurate competence.
The transition from the Approved Inspector regime to the Registered Building Control Approver regime under the BSA, completed during 2023 and 2024, has not eliminated the run-off exposure for past Approved Inspector work. PI cover for this profession is one of the tightest market segments and is closely linked to the run-off considerations discussed in Run-off cover: a broker’s deep dive.
The Building Safety Act 2022 has reshaped the liability landscape in ways that bear directly on PI underwriting.
The Higher-Risk Building regime, brought into force progressively through 2023 and 2024, imposes a dutyholder framework on the design, construction and occupation of HRBs. The Building Safety Regulator, sitting within the Health and Safety Executive, exercises supervisory powers across the design, gateway approval and in-occupation phases. The Principal Designer and Principal Contractor duties impose specific competence and information-management obligations on the lead design professional and lead contractor, which are now referenced in PI underwriting questionnaires.
The retrospective amendment to the Defective Premises Act 1972 is the more significant exposure shift. BSA s.135 inserted a new s.4A into the Limitation Act 1980, extending the limitation period for claims under DPA s.1 from six years to thirty years for relevant building work completed before 28 June 2022, and to fifteen years for work completed after that date. The retrospective thirty-year window has materially extended the exposure window for original designers of past residential schemes. Claims that would have been statute-barred under the previous six-year limitation became live again in June 2022.
Practitioners interested in how this interacts with the appeal route should note the Court of Appeal’s decision in URS Corporation Ltd v BDW Trading Ltd [2023] EWCA Civ 772, which confirmed the retrospective effect of s.135 and addressed the scope of duties owed under the DPA in the construction professional context. The Supreme Court’s consideration of related issues in 2024 has reinforced the practical breadth of the extended limitation regime.
Specialist brokers approach fire safety exclusions as drafting work, not box-ticking. Several practical levers are available.
First, the trigger language. An exclusion that bites on “any claim arising from or in connection with fire” is broader than one that bites on “any claim for damages arising from fire safety design or specification work”. A specialist broker will press for the narrower formulation where the firm’s exposure profile justifies it.
Second, the building scope. An exclusion drafted to capture “any building intended for residential occupation” is broader than one that captures “buildings meeting the Higher-Risk Building definition under the Building Safety Act 2022”. Where the firm’s work is concentrated below the HRB threshold, the narrower formulation is materially more valuable.
Third, the temporal scope. Some exclusions bite on past work regardless of when notified; others bite only on claims arising from work performed after a stated date. The retroactive date interaction is critical — see The retroactive date trap: a broker’s view for the wider context.
Fourth, carve-backs. A well-negotiated exclusion will preserve cover for stated activities — for example, fire engineering work declared at proposal stage, fire risk assessments carried out by named individuals, or M&E fire systems within a stated scope. The carve-back should reference the firm’s declared work in the proposal form, creating a clear evidential trail.
Fifth, the aggregation interaction. Where a sub-limit applies, the aggregation language determines how exposed the firm is to multiple claims on a common project or design. The Supreme Court’s decision in AIG Europe Ltd v Woodman [2017] UKSC 18 remains the authoritative guidance on the construction of aggregation clauses, and brokers should test the proposed wording against the AIG framework before binding.
For most construction professional firms in 2026, fire safety has moved from a wording clause to a workstream. The renewal cycle now typically involves a structured declaration of fee income split by activity type, a project register identifying any work within the HRB perimeter, evidence of competence frameworks for declared fire-related work, and bespoke wording negotiation around the exclusion itself.
The mid-sized architectural practice referenced at the start of this article ultimately renewed on terms that narrowed the proposed exclusion to HRB scope only, preserved cover for low-rise residential and commercial fire engineering, and applied a sub-limit and elevated excess to the declared residential work. The total premium increase was material but not catastrophic. The negotiation took six weeks and required the firm to produce documentation it had not previously maintained in structured form. That kind of preparatory work is now part of the renewal cycle for any construction professional firm with residential exposure.
A fire safety exclusion is a clause in a professional indemnity policy that removes cover for claims arising from specified fire-related work. The scope varies widely: some exclusions remove cover only for external wall systems on high-rise residential buildings, while others remove cover for any work involving fire safety design, fire risk assessment or compartmentation. The precise wording determines what is in and out of cover, and a difference of a few words can move a substantial portion of a firm’s workload from inside to outside the policy.
The Building Safety Act does not regulate insurance directly, but it has reshaped liability exposure in ways insurers respond to. The thirty-year retrospective limitation period under DPA s.4A, inserted by BSA s.135, has materially extended the period during which historic residential design work can give rise to claims. The Higher-Risk Building dutyholder regime has introduced new duties for Principal Designers and Principal Contractors. Both changes feed directly into underwriting questions and exclusion wording.
Under the Building Safety Act 2022 and associated regulations, a Higher-Risk Building is broadly a building that is at least eighteen metres in height or has at least seven storeys, and contains at least two residential units. Care homes and hospitals meeting the height criterion are captured by the in-construction HRB regime but not the in-occupation regime. Insurers’ exclusions sometimes reference the HRB definition directly and sometimes use an independent height-based formulation, so the wording must be read carefully.
Fire risk assessment work is generally excluded from standard construction professional PI cover unless the firm declares the activity and demonstrates competence. Where the firm employs fire engineers with IFE or Engineering Council registration, cover for declared fire risk assessment scope is usually negotiable, often with a sub-limit and elevated excess. Fire risk assessment on HRBs is the tightest sub-segment.
BSA s.135 inserted s.4A into the Limitation Act 1980, extending the limitation period for claims under section 1 of the Defective Premises Act 1972 from six to thirty years for relevant building work completed before 28 June 2022. This means that residential design work going back to the mid-1990s is potentially within the limitation period for DPA claims. The Court of Appeal in URS Corporation Ltd v BDW Trading Ltd [2023] EWCA Civ 772 confirmed the retrospective effect of the amendment.
The External Wall System (EWS1) form was introduced by RICS in late 2019 as a valuation tool to inform lenders of the fire safety status of external wall systems on residential buildings. The form was signed by a competent professional and intended to last five years. In practice, EWS1 became a de facto fire safety certification in the absence of any other widely accepted document. Firms that signed EWS1 forms during the 2019-2022 backlog face specific underwriting questions, and the EWS1 signatory population is treated as a discrete risk class.
A specialist broker can usually negotiate the scope of a fire safety exclusion, though the extent depends on the firm’s risk profile, claims history, declared competence and the insurer’s appetite. Common levers include narrowing the building scope to HRBs only, restricting the trigger language to specific design activities, adding carve-backs for declared work, and structuring sub-limits and excesses rather than a blanket exclusion.
A firm with no residential exposure may still find broad fire safety exclusions sweeping in incidental work — fire-stopping on a commercial building, smoke control on an industrial scheme, or a fire risk assessment carried out as part of a wider commercial commission. The broader exclusion patterns can also affect cover for incidental residential conversions, mixed-use schemes or work where the eventual use of the building changes after design. Even commercial-focused firms benefit from reading the exclusion wording precisely.
Apex Insurance Brokers Ltd is an independent UK insurance broker based in Bristol, advising professional services firms on professional indemnity insurance and related covers. The firm is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (firm reference 724952) and registered at Companies House (company number 07014570).
This commentary reflects market conditions as at May 2026 and is provided for general information. Insurance market conditions, policy wordings and regulatory positions change frequently; firms should obtain advice specific to their circumstances rather than rely on general commentary.
Apex Insurance Brokers serves UK professional services firms and commercial businesses. Call 0117 325 0027, email hello@apexinsurancebrokers.co.uk, or request a quotation.
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