A builders risk policy has homework in it, and the site is the one who has to do it.
Exclusions tell you what is not covered. Conditions and warranties tell you what you have to do to keep the cover you paid for. Break one and a perfectly ordinary fire or water loss can be argued over for months, or declined outright.
Start a quote file Read the short answer firstPermit, fire watch, and a record of both.
Fencing and lighting are cover, not decoration.
A stalled site has to be reported.
What are the conditions on a builders risk policy, and what happens if we break one?
They are promises about how the site will be run, written into the policy as warranties or protective safeguard conditions, and they usually cover hot work, site security, water and freeze protection, and telling the insurer when the schedule changes. Breaking one does not automatically end the policy, but it gives the insurer a defence to the claim, and how strong that defence is depends on the wording and on whether the breach had anything to do with the loss. Either way it turns a straightforward claim into an argument.
Nobody sets out to breach a condition. It happens because the conditions live in a document in an office and the work happens on a site. The single most useful thing a contractor can do with a builders risk policy is read the conditions page once, at the start, and put those requirements into the site routine rather than into a filing cabinet.
An exclusion removes a category of loss and everybody understands that going in. A warranty is different, because the cover was there and your own site conduct is what removed it. Insurers apply these conditions on construction projects specifically because a site under construction has no sprinklers running, no permanent alarm, unlocked openings and a rotating cast of trades. The conditions are the substitute for the protection a finished building would have. They are, in a real sense, the reason the policy could be priced at all.
Read these before the first delivery arrives.
Hot work
Welding, cutting, grinding, torching and roofing usually require a written permit, the area cleared and screened, an extinguisher present, and a fire watch kept for the period the policy or the applicable standard requires after the work stops. The paperwork is the point. A fire watch that was kept but never recorded is very hard to prove months later, and the permit book is what proves it.
Site security
Perimeter fencing, lighting, locked storage, cameras or a patrol. These often appear as a warranty rather than a suggestion, and sometimes with specific requirements once the value on site passes a stated point. If your site plan changes, or the fence comes down early to let equipment in, that is a change to the risk the insurer agreed to.
Water and freeze protection
The most expensive construction losses in this province are water, not fire. Policies commonly require that heat is maintained once systems are charged, that the site is monitored over a shutdown, or that water is drained. A December long weekend with the heat off in a partly enclosed building is the single most predictable claim in Lower Mainland construction.
Telling the insurer when things change
Builders risk is priced against a schedule, a value and a scope. If the completion date moves, the contract value rises, work stops for a period, or the building is partly occupied before completion, the policy needs to know. Most of these are express conditions, and all of them are cheaper to handle in advance than to explain afterwards.
Three sites where nobody did anything reckless.
The last cut of the day
A sub finishes a small piece of cutting at the end of the shift and leaves. There was a permit system, and it was used all week. Nobody wrote up the last one because it took four minutes. The fire started in the early hours, and the entire conversation afterwards is about a missing sheet of paper rather than about the fire.
The fence that came down early
Landscaping needed access, so a section of hoarding was removed two weeks before completion, at exactly the point when the finished value on site was at its highest. The security warranty referred to a continuous perimeter. The theft happened through the gap, which makes the connection between the breach and the loss uncomfortably direct.
The project that quietly stopped
Funding paused and the site sat for several weeks with no trades on it. Nobody told the broker, because nobody thought of a pause as an insurance event. An unattended project is a different risk and most policies require notice of it. The claim that followed was a water loss, and the argument was about the notice, not the water.
The ones worth settling at the pre-construction meeting.
Where do I find the conditions on my policy?
They are usually on a warranties or conditions endorsement attached behind the declarations page, not in the main wording, which is why they are missed. Send the whole policy rather than the certificate and you will get a plain list of what your site actually has to do, in writing.
A subcontractor broke the condition, not us. Does that matter?
Generally not, from the insurer’s point of view. The obligation sits with the insured on the policy, and on most projects that is the owner and the general contractor. What happens between you and the sub afterwards is a contract question. The practical answer is that the conditions have to be pushed down into the trade contracts and onto the site, not just accepted at the top.
Does breaking a condition void the whole policy?
It depends on the wording and on the circumstances. Some conditions suspend cover only for loss connected to the breach, some are written more broadly, and how they are applied is a question of the policy language and the facts. That uncertainty is the reason to treat them as operational requirements rather than as legal fine print.
We are doing hot work anyway. Is a permit system worth the trouble?
It is the cheapest risk control on a construction site and it is the one insurers ask about first after a fire. A permit book, a named fire watch and a clearance check take minutes per job and produce the record that decides the claim. WorkSafeBC also sets requirements for this kind of work, so it is worth checking your obligations there as well. WorkSafeBC publishes the current requirements.
The schedule has slipped. What do I actually need to do?
Tell your broker the new completion date and whether work has stopped or is continuing at reduced pace. Builders risk runs for a term and for a project, and the two need to stay aligned. Extending in advance is routine. Extending after the original expiry, on a project that has had a loss, is not.
Not the question you had? Send the policy and the site details through the quote file and you will get a written answer, not a sales call.
Get the conditions onto the site, not into a drawer.
Send the policy and you will get a one-page list of what the site has to do, in plain words, that a superintendent can actually use.