The ALS Group Risk Management Articles

As you may have heard, The ALS Group is attending the annual IRMI Construction Risk Conference in Nashville, TN.  I was happy to attend a workshop on Insuring Delay in Opening and Associated Costs, as the presenters hit on two of my pet peeves – declare all values at the beginning, before construction begins, and the contractor’s or construction manager’s fees (as part of its General Conditions) are included in the Hard Costs of the builder’s risk policy. Whether you are the owner/developer or the contractor buying Builder’s Risk coverage for a project, it is important that your values are detailed and reported up front.  It’s at the beginning, when

Some of you may be thinking that it’s far too early to start thinking about the holidays, but the reality is, many of your organizations will be planning holiday parties in the coming weeks. While taking a break to unwind and celebrate with co-workers should be a happy experience, it is important that those involved in planning the company holiday party are mindful of the underlying risks associated with such an event in order to strive for an incident-free celebration.

The IRMI Construction Risk Conference is in its 34th year, and this year promises to be bigger and better than ever, with more attendees registered than in recent years.  We are looking forward to being part of the action! There are some older and new trends in the industry that we want to hear more about – the country’s aging infrastructure, Alternative Project Delivery and what the insurance industry is now saying about New York Labor Law.

Risk, construction and compliance are three concepts that weigh heavily on the minds of owners and contractors globally. This was evident at the recent Risk & Compliance Summit held at Georgia Tech in Atlanta last week.

With the second anniversary of Superstorm Sandy just around the corner, I was thinking back to the whirlwind of media predictions that preceded landfall. Where would it strike? When would it hit? How bad would it be? Forecasters commented over and over that predicting the path of the storm and its ensuing destruction was particularly difficult because nothing like it had happened before. So I was surprised to learn of an even larger storm from 1821: the Norfolk and Long Island hurricane. If the Norfolk and Long Island hurricane were to hit today, its damage would exceed that of Sandy, Rita, Andrew and Katrina.

The unthinkable happens: the business that you have put all your passion, hard work, and money into is destroyed, and there was nothing you could do to prevent it. Or was there?

One of the most expensive predicaments a film production (especially the big-budget type) can face is a delay.  When you consider the scheduling of a large scale production, and the amount of money that goes into cast, crew, equipment, locations, permits, food, vehicles, etc. for each day of filming, a simple accident, especially, the film’s star getting injured can result in tremendous expense.