Guide
Why latent defects cover has to be arranged before you build
Updated
Every other insurance on a development can be arranged when you need it. This one cannot, and the reason is structural rather than commercial: the insurer is taking a ten year view on workmanship it has to have seen.
Why inspection is the whole product
A latent defect is one that could not reasonably have been found at completion. An insurer taking that risk for a decade wants evidence that the structure was built properly, and the only reliable evidence is inspection at the stages when the structure is still visible: foundations, frame, waterproofing, before things are covered up.
Once a building is finished, that evidence no longer exists and cannot be recreated. A survey of a completed building tells you about the finishes, not about what is behind them.
What happens if you leave it
Options narrow and prices rise. Some providers will not engage at all after a certain stage, others will require intrusive investigation at your cost, and the cover eventually offered may carry exclusions for the elements nobody saw.
That last outcome is the worst of both, because you have paid for a policy and the parts most likely to fail are outside it.
Why a lender cares
Lenders take security over buildings they may need to sell, and a new building without recognised latent defects cover is materially harder to sell and to mortgage onward. That is why the requirement so often arrives from the funder rather than from the developer's own risk assessment.
Which means the insurance decision has to be made before the funding is drawn, and therefore before construction. Build the sequence into the programme rather than discovering it.
The practical sequence
Approach providers at design stage, agree the inspection regime, then start on site. The inspections then run alongside construction as scheduled events rather than as interruptions.
Ask early what the latest stage is at which a provider would still take the scheme on. It is a direct question with a direct answer, and it tells you exactly how much of your programme is still recoverable.