Renovating an operating office building means one thing: building in the middle of an organisation that keeps working while you do it. Tenants, visitor traffic, a live server room, running building services – here the boundary of the work site isn't a fence, it's a plasterboard wall with twenty laptops behind it. It's a textbook case for cover planning.
- The main role here belongs not to the works under construction, but to the existing property and the tenant environment.
- Water damage, dust damage, power outages: the typical losses hit the operating part of the building.
- Tenants are third parties – their loss is a liability matter; the client's building falls under the existing property extension.
- Work organisation (phasing, night work, protective measures) is part of the cover's terms and conditions.
Whose loss is it?
With loss events during an office refurbishment, the first question is: whose property has been damaged? The client's part of the building – the floor slab, the corridor, the building-services spine – is a matter for the existing property extension. The tenants' furnishings, servers and stock, on the other hand, belong to a third party: their loss falls under the liability section. That's why the two covers' limits need planning together here – one tracks the value of the building, the other the value of the tenant environment.
The typical loss patterns
Top of the list is water damage: a riser opened for a mechanical tie-in, a tap left running over the weekend, a joint that gives way under test pressure – and the water doesn't stop at the work site, it ends up two floors down, in offices that are still in use. Next comes dust damage (servers, office equipment), hot work (the fire article), and disruption caused by power outages. What they have in common: the value of the loss is often several times that of the work itself.
Work organisation as a condition of cover
The insurer's expectations here coincide with a professional way of working: phasing and isolation (dust and fire barriers), checks after any work involving water, a protocol for closing and opening risers, an authorisation regime for hot work, rules for night and weekend working. Documenting all this is evidence in the event of a claim: documentation article.
The client's peace of mind
The client (owner, operator) has two interests: the building and tenant satisfaction. Both are served by a pre-start condition survey, by checking the contractor's cover, and by briefing tenants in advance. Related genres: work carried out in an operating plant and renovating an older building.
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