Specialist Insurance for Facility Management Companies

Facility management is a compilation of several different skills designed to deliver support services to the organisation that the company serves. Potential clients can be property owners, business parks or even large organisations where outsourcing most services to a single contractor makes perfect sense.

Because the activities carried out by facility management companies can be so diverse, they effectively must act as a jack of all trades!

From an insurance point of view facility management companies can cause insurers a problem. Most insurers will want to pigeonhole what a business does into a few categories, thus making the rating of the risk straight forward. The underwriters will also know what their exposures are.

The different disciplines that a facility management company undertakes opens the insurers up to several different risks, some of which might even require specialist cover.

As broad heading some of the services offered will include:

• Security services
• Cleaning services
• Property Services
• Back & front office support services
• Catering services

Thankfully some insurers can understand the risks involved and have produced an insurance product to cater for what is a fairly niche market. The insurers have looked at the core disciplines and have tailored cover to address what can be particular problems.

Looking at security services, what happens if there is a failure to secure a premise and a loss occurs, if someone is wrongfully arrested or keys are lost? Under a normal public liability policy these risks are not covered, under a specialist policy they are.

Specialist cover also applies to cleaning activities, what happens if property being worked on is damaged or there is misuse of phones by cleaning staff? Under a standard policy these types of risks are not covered.

Property services can cover a multitude of different things from changing a light bulb to complex repairs. Specialist policies are likely to offer some cover for defective workmanship.

For more information on this topic and full details of the type of cover available, please contact Tony Gibbs on 0118 9165485