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. An urban site affects three categories of property. How do they sort?
The works under construction, the owner's existing structures and third-party property fall under three distinct regimes: a construction policy covers what does not yet exist
The sentence to retain is the very definition of the object: a construction policy covers what does not yet exist, and everything already standing falls under something else. Grouping the works with the existing structures, as another answer suggests, is the most natural error since they belong to the same owner and physically touch; yet they are covered by neither the same contract nor the same terms. The classification is the first step in an urban loss file, and it governs the evidence to gather.
Glossary entry →2. A refurbishment retains an 1890 building and digs two basement levels. What happens to the retained building's insurance?
The property policy withdraws or sub-limits as soon as major works start: the building falls between two contracts, insured by neither
The property insurer does not want to carry a building being underpinned, and the construction insurer does not cover what already existed: the gap opens at the precise moment the old fabric is most stressed. It is a consequence of timing rather than a drafting gap, and it is handled before works start through an existing-structures extension, never after. Believing in continuity, in either form, is exactly what stops that extension being requested.
Glossary entry →3. The existing-structures extension is obtained. What does it cover, and what is its sub-limit based on?
Only damage caused by the execution of the works, with a sub-limit based on the cost of the works rather than the building's value, and often a condition survey required
The two limits combine and are discovered at settlement: the cause must be the execution of the works, which rules out an electrical fire in an untouched part, and the amount is calibrated on the project rather than the building, so an extension attached to two million of works does not repair a townhouse worth twenty. The answer basing it on the building's value is the one spontaneously assumed, and it is the gap between the two that surprises at the moment of rebuilding.
Glossary entry →4. The neighbor invokes abnormal neighborhood disturbance. What becomes of the debate about good practice?
It becomes moot: the regime relieves the neighbor of proving fault, and some liability policies withdraw where it bites
A blameless site still incurs liability, and that is what disorients a contractor that did everything by the book: the disturbance is measured by what the neighbor suffers and not by what the constructor did well or badly. The second half of the answer is the one discovered too late, since liability cover built on fault can withdraw precisely where the regime dispenses with proving any. Checking that point in the policy is worth more than perfecting a method statement that will not be in issue.
Glossary entry →5. A crack appears at the neighbor's during the works. How is it established that it pre-existed?
It can no longer be established once the excavation is open: the condition survey and the preventive court order manufacture the evidence, and are requested before
Once works have started, no expert examination can say a crack was there before, and the substitutes the other answers propose do not bear on what must be proved, the state of one particular wall on one particular date. This evidence is manufactured rather than collected, and it is manufactured before the excavation opens through a condition survey, or a preventive court order where the neighbor is reluctant. It is the cheapest step in the file and the only one that can never be made up later.
Glossary entry →