Our suite of internal risk management services, include contract reviews for our clients which are undertaken inhouse by our legally qualified Knowledge Team.
Bellrock views this as an important difference in our service offering – working in partnership with our clients to gain a better understanding of their projects, and actively assisting to improve outcomes and make contract negotiations from an insurance perspective much less difficult.
Risk advisory & contracting strategy
Our role as Risk Advisors is to advise on the extent to which your professional indemnity insurance programme meets the obligations required in your contracts, the extent to which indemnity provisions are offset by the coverage under your insurance and importantly identify risks that are uninsured or are commercial risks. Whilst outside of our standard service offering, on request, we are able to advise on the extent to which other insurances put in place by Bellrock, such as public liability, meet any obligations in your contracts.
Ordinarily a company’s strategy is for their insurance programme to comply with contractual obligations they have with their clients. In the current market some of these requirements may not be feasible and our role is to assist you in forming a fair and equitable platform while contracting. The aim is to satisfy your clients contractually and, to the extent possible, transfer as much contractual risk to your insurance programme.
Service features
As part of our contract review service, we will provide feedback on the contracts you are intending to enter, or simply address concerns relating to a specific clause or clauses. We will offer advice and recommendations based on our experience. We ensure that our comments clearly articulate uninsured exposures as well as commercial considerations – to enable you to make informed decisions to accept risk on a commercial basis, even in circumstances where it may be exposed to additional risk. Understanding the risk being taken is key to being able to make such decisions.
A contract review does not constitute legal advice, as such, we are adept at working in partnership with your legal advisors as required to ensure drafting reflects the insurance placement arranged and that downstream contract modifications are also contemplated at the same time.
In the interests of ensuring our clients can confidently enter into contracts, we would usually assist with an initial review of any proposed contract at the tender phase, highlighting any contractual obligations which may fall outside the scope of cover of your insurance programme, but also to advise any areas where risk can be transferred or where current contracting conditions in the market would suggest improvements can be made.
