IN THE KNOW
The insurance policies behind Malaysia's biggest and tallest buildings
The Kuala Lumpur skyline is magnificent thanks to the Petronas towers, Merdeka 118, The Exchange 106 and many more. Elsewhere in Malaysia, in the beautiful Genting Highlands, the world's biggest hotel is awaiting visitors. As you can imagine enormous, complex buildings like this don't just come with construction challenges, they also face some interesting insurance challenges to keep the project moving.
Malaysia's legendary love of tall, big buildings
The Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat says Kuala Lumpur has 179 skyscrapers over 150m high, making our extraordinary skyline world famous. 57 of them are more than 200m, six exceed 300m and the tallest of all is Merdeka 118, just under 679m tall with 118 floors.
The history of skyscrapers in Kuala Lumpur kicked off way back in 1945 with the 18 storey Lee Yan Lian Building, for the first time beating the record set by the 1897 Sultan Abdul Samad Building. The 20 storey Malaysian Houses of Parliament followed in 1963. These magnificent structures set a trend that has carried on ever since.
The First World Hotel, which we mentioned at the start of the article, is the world's biggest as far as the number of rooms is concerned, offering a mighty 7351 rooms spread across three colourful towers set on a beautiful hill surrounded by lush views of the Genting Highlands. It took years to complete, with the final set of rooms added recently. So what insurance challenges do the property developers have to take into account when constructing these huge creations?
Essential insurance policies for the construction sector
Buildings like this present unique risks. If things go wrong during construction the amounts of money involved can be eye-wateringly large. The regulatory and legal landscapes are just as complex, and employee health and safety is critical.
About Contractors All Risks insurance - CAR
CAR protects the finances of all the parties involved in a project, whoever causes damage and whatever the damage is. Bought by the contractor, employer or property developer, other interested parties are also allowed to be named on the policy, for example the financier supporting the project. All parties can make claims and everyone involved is responsible for disclosing claimable injuries and damage.
About Consequential Loss Contractors Plant and Machinery insurance
When there's a sudden and unexpected physical loss of or damage to insured machinery, the contractor will have to repair or replace it. These policies pay out for exactly that while excluding internal breakdowns. Machines while at work, not working and when being maintained are protected and it isn't site-specific cover. It protects all the sites involved in the project
About Machinery Breakdown insurance
Machinery Breakdown insurance or MBD pays out if construction and engineering plant, machinery or mechanical equipment breaks down at work, when not working and while being maintained. It's designed to protect unforeseen and sudden loss of or damage to named machinery, paying to repair or replace the machine. The machinery's owner, lessor or lessee can buy the policy, as can the finance company lending the money for the machinery, either on its own or with another company with a financial interest.
Insurance extras provided by responsible construction companies
Construction workers can face extreme conditions and extremely risky situations working on these huge buildings. The best employers take employee health and safety seriously, providing coverage for accidents, injuries and death to support workers and their families if something goes wrong.
These can include Group Income Protection if someone can't work because of an illness or injury, Group Healthcare, Group Life Assurance, Group Critical Illness cover, various types of Life Assurance, plus Personal Accident Insurance and Group Hospitalisation Insurance.
Helping you find the best construction and engineering insurance
As you can see, behind every great building there's a suite of quality insurance products designed to keep business going. Can we help you with construction and engineering cover, or help you decide which employee benefits insurance policies you need to protect your workers?