Accountability in Construction: Contractual Risk Transfer
Even the plainest-looking commercial or residential building typically is the product of collaborative efforts by designers and skilled tradespeople — carpenters, masons, electricians, plumbers, drywallers, roofers and more. To function as a modern, structurally sound and safe edifice, the building must include a complex network of pipes and wires and ducts and tanks — most of them hidden behind walls and doors and ceilings and floors.
Both during the building’s construction and after its completion, much can go wrong. And when a job-site accident caused by a contractor or subcontractor results in property damage or bodily harm, an insurance claim is all but inevitable, often with a lawsuit soon to follow. Typically, every contractor involved in the project is named in the suit.
Making sure the right parties are held accountable and keeping claims out of court are the primary objectives of contractual risk transfer.