7:20 am Registration
8:00 am Chair’s Opening Remarks
8:05 am
Insurance & Claims Mitigation
8:10 am Forecasting the Rising Costs of Insurance & How Contractors Should Respond
Synopsis
• Understanding the macro trends influencing insurance costs such as climate
change, political uncertainty and economic risks to project how your coverage
costs may rise
• Ensuring proper risk management on the job site and understanding its critical
role in the buying of worker’s compensation, general liability, access liability and
professional liability; structuring safety programs to leverage lower insurance cost
• Structuring safety programs and safety ratings to ensure prequalification to bid
on certain projects and leverage lower insurance premiums in the face of rising
insurance rates
• Understanding insurance programs and using insurance reserves to increase a
project’s profit; modeling insurance programs to be financially profitable and a
profit center for your business
8:50 am Panel: Hearing How Insurance Products Are Evolving & What Controls Insurers Are Placing in Their Agreements
Synopsis
• Exploring trends in claims and how insurers are reacting to industry-wide safety
and quality metrics
• Reviewing the outcomes of disputes between contractors and insurance firms:
what are the lessons learned?
• Understanding how insurance is adapting to emerging threats such as cyberattacks
to ensure you’re protected
9:30 am Audience Discussion: Forecasting the Future of Construction Insurance & What Actions Contractors Should Take Today
Synopsis
• A proactive opportunity for you to engage with colleagues in the industry and
discuss what you all should be doing in your firms to take full advantage of the
changing construction insurance space to lower costs and possibly increase profits.
10:00 am Morning Refreshments
Document & Contract Risk Control
10:40 am Enforcing Robust Contract Review Processes to Identify Indemnity Risks & Insurance Requirements
Synopsis
• The dos and don’ts of contract signing; evaluating contract language to identify if
risk has unnecessarily and unknowing been written into the contract
• Ensuring that you are not unknowingly taking on uninsured risks or going to have
to pay higher insurance costs for exposures you are not being paid to take on
• Making sure there are no gaps in the language of the contract to ensure
consistency and alignment in subcontracts to ensure project quality and success
• Creating and committing to processes to ensure your company does not take on
undue risk through contracts resulting in higher insurance costs
11:20 am Outlining Best Practices in Documentation & Communication of Policies to Protect Yourself & Your Firm if a Claim Occurs
Synopsis
• Staying on top of cumbersome processes to make sure items such as insurance
certificates have all been submitted to protect your firm and your insurance
requirements
• Document control for disputes; ensuring necessary litigation and claims relevant
materials are collected and are readily accessible
• Tracking commitments and agreements from various communications to ensure
visibility of responsibility
12:00 pm Networking Lunch
Cost Forecasting & Tariffs
1:00 pm Raising Your Liquidity Through Robust Owner Financing & Upfront Billings
Synopsis
• Protecting against subcontractor defaulting mid-project through careful selection
of owners to partner with; reviewing their financial viability to pay on time to
prevent late payments to subcontractors
• Preventing defaults from equity and debt holder owners by ensuring that you are
signing up for work that will get paid for properly and get a solid return from
• Knowing the risk profile of an owner and that an oncoming recession can change
an owner’s capabilities: ensuring that your owner has all the proper funding lined
out at the time of the start of the work to prevent the chaos of schedules being
pushed months or years
1:40 pm Audience Discussion: Revealing Expectations for Material Cost Escalation & Supply Chain Reliability in 2020 & Beyond
Synopsis
• Ensuring that material costs and contingencies are budgeted for appropriately
across all projects
• Identifying materials at high risk of escalation or high volatility, and how to reduce
risk on these today
• Exploring the differences between domestic and international supply chains and
how to factor in additional risk where necessary
2:10 pm Understanding the Impact of Tariffs & Other Political Uncertainties on Your Cost Management
Synopsis
• Understanding where the US economy is going in the current unpredictable
political landscape and how that is going to affect your business
• Preparing for the economic risk to the construction industry from tariffs and rising
supplier cost and potentially tariffs imposed on Chinese and Mexican goods
• What is the owner perception on the uncertain tariff possibilities: will they cause a
rise in the cost of building or is this a short term inconvenience? Who takes the hit
of these extra costs?
2:40 pm Closing Discussion: Sharing Awareness of Undiscussed Risks & Identifying the Unknown Unknowns
Synopsis
Ending on a cautionary note through conversations with your peers on the risks
that were not covered in the main days of the conference and see if your concerns
match others in the room. This will also be your opportunity to learn how to
prepare for “unknown unknowns” as a general contractor in the US.