Every answer and its explanation appears here once you have finished the path. Each one then links to the matching glossary entry, where the concept is set out in full with its worked example.
1. A structural works contractor let its decennial liability cover lapse for nonpayment during the first four months of the site, then took it out again. The certificate it produces at acceptance is perfectly valid. Eight years later, a defect appears. Where is the problem?
Decennial cover is assessed AT THE OPENING OF THE SITE, and it was missing on that date: the certificate produced at acceptance is valid and says nothing about the only moment that counts
Two dates carry the same name in site conversations and do not designate the same thing. The decennial guarantee RUNS from acceptance, which is correct; the insurance cover for that liability is ASSESSED at the opening of the site. The answer concluding there is no problem takes the first for the second, and that is the error that has people collecting certificates on acceptance day believing they have verified something. The one invoking retroactive nullity confuses cancellation, which ends things going forward, with nullity, which presupposes a defect when the contract was formed. The one reasoning on unfitness for purpose describes a condition of the decennial guarantee, accurate in itself, but one that applies throughout the ten years without the eighth changing anything.
Glossary entry · assurance-construction2. An owner accepts its plant and postpones taking out its property damage policy: the construction policy provides a twenty-four month maintenance period, so it considers itself covered. What is it getting wrong?
The maintenance period is not an extension of the construction policy: depending on its form, it covers what the contractor breaks when returning, or what emerges and stems from the works, never the works in general
The error concerns the NATURE of the cover and not its parameters, which is why the three other answers, discussing duration, deductible and termination, miss the point even where they state accurate facts. A fire unrelated to the works, a storm, a theft in the accepted plant find nothing in a maintenance period, whatever its duration and whatever its deductible, because the trigger it requires is an intervention by the contractor or defective execution. The answer about entry into operation borrows a rule that is true of the construction cover itself, which ceases on the section put into service, and applies it to a cover that begins precisely where that one stops.
Glossary entry · garantie-subsequente3. An acceptance certificate is signed on November 12 and records an acceptance that took place on October 20. Damage occurs on November 2. Which regime applies?
The post-acceptance one: the regimes follow the date of acceptance, not that of the document recording it. On November 2, custody had passed and the maintenance period had been running for thirteen days
Acceptance is a legal fact that the certificate RECORDS, and a record does not create what it records. Believing otherwise is the error that gives the signature a power it does not have, and it is comfortable because the signature is itself dated beyond dispute. The answer on enforceability moves the debate onto real ground, that of a date of convenience, but nothing of the sort is alleged here and an acceptance that genuinely occurred on October 20 binds everyone. The one keeping both regimes together is the most expensive, because it suggests a reassuring overlap where there is a boundary: what the maintenance period covers is narrow, and the thirteen day gap enjoys no duplication.
Glossary entry · tous-risques-chantier-car4. The day after acceptance, a delivery driver is injured on an unprotected opening. The site has every appearance of a live construction site: fencing up, signage, plant still there. Who answers for the thing?
The owner, custody having passed with acceptance. Liability for things follows the custodian, and the custodian changed the day before, whatever the fencing, the signage and the plant may suggest
The appearance of the site is what misleads, and it misleads everyone the same way: nobody removed a sign or moved a fence, so each person keeps reasoning as they did the day before. The answer making custody a purely physical state holds on to something true, custody is characterized by use, direction and control, but forgets that acceptance performs precisely that transfer and that the contractor still on site now works there on someone else's account. The one invoking the lifting of reserves confuses two calendars: reserves follow the obligation of perfect completion, they do not hold custody back. The one naming the insurer confuses a deadline to NOTIFY a claim with the period during which cover is in force, and that confusion shows up in every end of site file.
Glossary entry · responsabilite-sans-faute5. An operating policy takes effect on October 1, the commissioning date set in the contract and fixed when cover was placed in June. Actual acceptance takes place on September 5, and the construction policy ceases on the accepted part. What has just happened?
A twenty-six day gap in which the works are no longer a construction site and not yet an insured asset. Nothing synchronizes the two policies: one follows a forecast date fixed months earlier, the other a fact that happens when it happens
Early acceptance is good site news and bad insurance news, and that reversal is what makes the gap invisible: nobody looks for a problem on the day the project gains three weeks. Both answers saying nothing happened invent a bridging rule, automatic extension for one, risk transfer prevailing over the inception date for the other. Neither exists: an inception date is an inception date, and two policies placed with two insurers on two calendars are held together by nothing. The answer seeing a double insurance gets the direction wrong, and it is the most instructive error: it describes an overlap, so an excess of cover, when the mismatch produces exactly the opposite. An overlap would be settled between insurers, a gap is paid for.
Glossary entry · tous-risques-montage-ear