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Construction & Public Contracts Risk Management & Surety

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Overview

If you are a construction contractor, public concessionaire, designer, or provider of sureties, you face significant risk with every project. We appreciate the financial, legal, administrative, and practical aspects of managing risk and are ready to help you with proven safety, insurance, and bonding counsel. In addition, we’re here to assist you as you evaluate the nuances of various risk management tools.

We understand the risks in the construction industry. With decades of experience on projects of all sizes and type, we are intimately familiar with the challenges you face in managing risk.

Services

We offer proven insurance, safety, and bonding counsel. We also help evaluate the nuances of various risk management tools, including:

  • OCIPs
  • CCIPs
  • Professional E&O coverage
  • CPPL coverage
  • Builder’s risk insurance
  • Pollution coverage
  • Completed operations coverage
  • Additional insured endorsements
  • Subcontractor default insurance
  • Performance and payment bonds
  • Letters of credit

Experience

Builder’s Risk Recovery

  • We recovered more than $4 million from an owner, a group of builder’s risk insurers and a utility company on behalf of a national construction company in connection with the failure and replacement of a multi-million dollar multi-layer steam line. The investigation involved both insurance coverage issues and issues of welding and metallurgy, industry standards for the design, installation and operation of multi-layered steam lines, the mapping of physical evidence of changes to the failed steam line and the use of such location-related information to demonstrate that the steam line was destroyed by improper operation and not by construction defects.

Cessation of Work/Business Interruption Recovery

  • We recovered $7.75 million of repair costs and cessation of work expenses from a group of OCIP builder’s risk insurance carriers in connection with a construction phase flood of a group of immersed tube highway tunnels. The case involved both insurance coverage issues and complex engineering issues relating to geotechnical soil conditions and means and methods of underwater construction.

Resequencing/Extended Overhead Recovery

  • We recovered $5.5 million of resequencing and inefficiency costs and extended overheads from a group of OCIP builder’s risk carriers as a result of a 65,000 cubic yard slope failure on a major cut and cover highway tunnel project. The case involved insurance coverage issues, geotechnical issues and time entitlement analyses.

First-Party Property Recovery

  • We recovered more than $3 million from our client’s first-party property insurance carrier on account of structural damage done by tenants to a historic building through a series of unauthorized renovations, which structural damage triggered code compliance upgrades as part of the building’s repair and reconstruction.

Hotel Errors and Omissions Recovery

  • We recovered millions of dollars of direct and indirect costs for an owner of a hotel/casino from engineering firms as a result of the defective design of the steel structure of a hotel tower. The case involved insurance coverage issues, structural steel load path analyses and time entitlement analyses.

Wrap-Up Claims

  • Numerous multi-million dollar recoveries for construction companies under builder’s risk and wrap-up insurance policies in cases (some involving mega-projects like Boston’s “Big Dig”) which presented complex insurance, engineering and construction issues. Successfully handled dozens of such substantial and complex structural defect, mechanical system, flood, earth movement and fire claims for regional and national contractors in cases involving bridges, tunnels (cut and cover, bored, jacked and immersed tube); commercial buildings and underground utilities and structures (slurry walls, jet grouting, steam lines, sewer lines, duct banks, etc.).

Case Studies

Design-Build: Judgement of First Impression

The Construction & Public Contracts Group successfully tried a case of first impression with regard to the allocation of risk and design development in Design Build projects, as well as complex issues relating to engineering, design, steel fabrication,…

Newsroom

Publication

How Can Contractors and Sureties Address Material Price Escalation and Shortage Delays?

October 13, 2022

A shorter version of the article was also published in the Fall 2022 issue of the NASBP Surety Bond Quarterly magazine found here.For more than two years, price volatility of construction materials has significantly eroded contractors’ bottom lines. Mult…

Publication

Video: What to Know About Entering Public Sector Construction

September 30, 2022

With the passing of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), there will continue to be a significant influx of federal money in the infrastructure market in New England. There is a lot of work to be done repairing roads and bridges, as well as ci…

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Firm News

Hinckley Allen Construction Practice Named to The Top 50 Construction Law Firms™ for 2022

June 1, 2022

Hinckley Allen is proud to announce that it was ranked 13th in The Top 50 Construction Law Firms™ by Construction Executive magazine.Associated Builders and Contractors Service Corporation, a national industry trade organization consisting of 21,000 memb…

Firm News

Hinckley Allen Construction Practice Named to The Top 50 Construction Law Firms™

June 7, 2021

Hinckley Allen is proud to announce that it was ranked 12th in The Top 50 Construction Law Firms™ by Construction Executive magazine.Associated Builders and Contractors Service Corporation, a national industry trade organization consisting of 21,000 memb…