Thank you for Subscribing to Construction Business Review Weekly Brief
Alex Lyons, Commercial Director, Giles Fallan, CEO and Leah Bray, Operations DirectorOver a decade ago, Giles Fallan, now founder-CEO of UK-based specialist insurance consultancy LBB London Belgravia, stepped away from the insurer side of the latent defects insurance (LDI) market because he believed client service had fallen short. Insurers presented developers with quotations, but rarely with the strategic guidance needed to understand how they truly assessed risk. He established LBB to change that dynamic, embedding independence, insurer-side insight and long-term advocacy into its operating model from the outset.
“Transparency sits at the very centre of our work. We act as advocates for our clients in a very complex and fast-moving LDI market,” says Alex Lyons, commercial director.
How does insurer-side experience enhance advisory capabilities across the latent defects insurance market?
That advocacy draws on direct experience and a deliberate career decision. Much of the senior team moved from warranty providers and insurance groups into advisory roles for a specific reason. Over time, insurers began shifting their appetites: some toward high-volume, lower-value housing risks; others toward singular high-value towers. Those appetites rarely overlapped. Moving to the broker side meant spanning the whole market whilst carrying insurer-side knowledge across — including an understanding of how underwriters evaluate contractor track record, corporate strength, design specification and structural exposure — which enables a genuine full-market review.
Independence reinforces that approach. LBB places business across the whole latent defect insurance market, including with providers that transact directly with developers. Where the strongest solution sits outside a brokered placement, LBB makes that recommendation openly. Where the correct answer is to stay with an existing provider, LBB says so and steps back, trusting the relationship will bring the client back on the next project. That same full-market review has also identified comparable, robust, A-rated insurer options for PLC clients where incumbent arrangements no longer represent the best fit, delivering significant premium efficiencies within a single year.
Getting Ahead of Risk
Early engagement has become particularly critical under the UK’s evolving building safety framework. Gateway Two requires complete design and material specification approval before construction can commence, yet those same decisions directly influence whether an insurer will provide a structural warranty. Developers have secured gateway approval and are prepared to mobilise on site, only to discover that specified materials fall outside the insurer’s appetite. Returning to redesign at that stage introduces delays, rework and increased project exposure.
Why is early-stage engagement critical for managing risk in complex development projects?
Alignment between client and insurer begins long before policy placement. Every project carries a distinct dynamic: a self-build differs fundamentally from a 15-unit housing scheme and a regional housebuilder delivering 1,000 homes operates under different pressures than a 60-storey urban tower. Effective advisory begins with understanding what the client intends to deliver, who the end user will be and how the corporate structure and funding arrangements are configured.
-
Transparency sits at the very centre of our work. We act as advocates for our clients in a very complex and fast-moving LDI market.
Early engagement has become particularly critical under the UK’s evolving building safety framework. Gateway Two requires complete design and material specification approval before construction can commence, yet those same decisions directly influence whether an insurer will provide a structural warranty. Developers have secured gateway approval and are prepared to mobilise on site, only to discover that specified materials fall outside the insurer’s appetite. Returning to redesign at that stage introduces delays, rework and increased project exposure.
Sometimes the consequential detail appears small. On a high-rise tower, specifying windows that can only be removed externally via scaffolding rather than internally via lift access may look like a minor design choice. In the event of a defect, it can mean the difference between a straightforward internal removal and closing a road to erect scaffolding. The cost implications of those two scenarios are materially different. Catching that consideration at the design stage rather than after completion is precisely the kind of early insight that protects both programme certainty and insurability.
Financial robustness forms another core layer of review. Under latent defects insurance, developers retain liability for the first two years following completion. Many large schemes operate through single-purpose vehicles, which require analysis of parent-company guarantees, cross-company support and, in some cases, offshore funding structures. Where appropriate, LBB introduces bonds or escrow arrangements to strengthen underwriting confidence and maintain competitive premiums.
How does coordinated advisory support help resolve complex redevelopment and engineering challenges?
That coordination becomes critical in complex redevelopment schemes. During the transformation of Surrey County Hall in Kingston upon Thames, a Grade II-listed civic building being converted by London Square Developments into a 292-apartment mixed-use community, heritage constraints and structural considerations limited the insurer's appetite. Working with Approved Consultant Services and ACS Engineering, LBB secured structural warranty cover with A-rated insurer Build-Zone, allowing the £75 million project to proceed with a robust warranty framework in place.
Staying at the Table
When design or construction questions reach an impasse, LBB brings the right people together. Where email exchanges between parties harden into competing technical positions, getting engineers in the same room, with LBB’s own people sitting alongside the client, more often than not, produces a solution. It is peripheral support rather than formal instruction, but it is the kind of support clients rely upon.
From feasibility and quotation evaluation through construction and certificate delivery, engagement remains continuous, sometimes spanning two or three-year build cycles. Most brokers arrive, place the business and consider their work done. LBB stays with the client throughout, as an extension of their team rather than a transactional intermediary, which is precisely why Fallan founded the firm in the first place.
