Reviewed by Matthew Bartlett, Director · Last reviewed 8 July 2026
Your renewal invitation has come in and the numbers do not make sense. The premium has moved sharply, the wording review did not engage with the collateral warranties you signed last year, or the broker never asked about the balance between civil, structural and MEP work in your discipline mix. Engineering consultancies change broker at renewal for reasons like these and the mechanics are well established. This entry sets out what to expect, what your current broker has to release, and the continuity points around collateral warranties, BSA 2022 exposure and discipline mix that must not slip in the handover.
Watch for observable patterns. The renewal premium moved and the underwriting rationale is not on the file. The wording review was a covering paragraph, not a written analysis of the fitness-for-purpose exclusion, the design-and-build carve-out, the pollution position or the net contribution clause. The broker did not ask about the new schools or hospitals in the pipeline, the temporary works you started signing off, the change in the CDM principal designer profile, or the collateral warranty portfolio. The submission went to one insurer’s facility rather than an open-market submission across an engineering panel. Terms landed late. Any of these can be a one-off. A cluster is a signal.
Under ICOBS 2 information duties and the wider FCA client-service framework, the current broker is required to provide the information you need to make an informed decision at renewal. That means the current wording in full, the schedule, the claims record, the renewal invitation and any change in terms since inception. Consumer Duty (PRIN 2A) applies where the principal is treated as a consumer of the broking service. A written request for the file is enough. You do not owe an explanation for leaving.
The Engineering Council chartered framework — ICE for civils, IStructE for structural, IMechE, IET and others — does not prescribe a PII regulation in the way that ARB, RICS or the SRA do, so the practical constraint sits in the appointments and collateral warranties you sign. Every collateral warranty issued during the year is a live contractual commitment: the warranty typically requires the consultant to maintain PI cover of a specified limit for a specified period, and the incoming broker needs the full portfolio in front of them to size the limit and confirm no gap on aggregate. Under the Building Safety Act 2022 section 135, any residential exposure — including engineering work on higher-risk buildings — sits inside the extended thirty-year limitation window and needs a proper retroactive-date read on the new wording. Discipline mix disclosure matters: an underwriter prices civil, structural, MEP, geotechnical and temporary-works work differently, and a shift in the mix during the year is a material fact under section 3 of the Insurance Act 2015. Cross-discipline consultancies should also confirm the “insured services” definition captures every discipline actually practised.
The order matters.
First, do not cancel the current policy until the new one is bound. A claims-made policy needs an unbroken chain, and the collateral warranties you have signed depend on continuous cover. Second, give the incoming broker the full collateral warranty schedule alongside the current wording, schedule and claims record. Third, the fair-presentation duty under section 3 of the Insurance Act 2015 continues at renewal and at every material variation — disclose the discipline mix, the higher-risk building exposure and the temporary-works position honestly. Fourth, any circumstance already notified to the outgoing insurer stays with that insurer; the new policy responds to claims made during its own period. Fifth, confirm the retroactive date on the new policy matches the outgoing inception so historic files and warranties remain within cover. Sixth, read the aggregation clause, the fitness-for-purpose exclusion and the pollution position on the new wording against the outgoing one.
A broker doing the work properly on an engineering file looks like this. A named broker reads the wording and writes down the analysis. The submission uses the current discipline mix, collateral warranty portfolio, project pipeline and claims record to build the risk picture, and goes to a specialist engineering panel on an open-market basis. BSA 2022 s.135 exposure and warranty aggregate risk are treated as live constraints, not footnotes. Material variations mid-year are handled at the point they happen. When engineers move to Apex Insurance Brokers from another broker, they tell us the difference is the same broker on the phone and a wording review that engages with the actual work, the discipline mix and the warranty portfolio. That is the working model, and it is why the retention rate on the engineering book runs at 95%.
Renewal at hand?
Send us your current renewal terms and we’ll take a look. A named broker will read every submission and come back within one working day with a proper comparison.