The United States Senate overwhelmingly passed the $1 trillion infrastructure bill in August. The House aims to pass the bill by October. According to an analysis by S&P Global, the bill could add more than 880,000 jobs by 2030. While this is great news for the American economy, it is potentially a headache for property/casualty insurers that write construction business and their general contractor insureds.
Executive Summary
As the liability picture changes because of infrastructure spending and construction industry workforce changes, insurers may want to consider working more closely with their general contractor customers to ensure best practices for tracking certificates of insurance to execute risk transfer. Here, Martin Mick, co-founder and CEO of Docutrax, reviews some of the trends and provides a checklist of items that need to be tracked by contractors.(UPDATE: The House passed the bill in early November after this article first published)
Eighty-eight percent of contractors are already struggling to find enough employees and are hiring more unskilled and inexperienced workers. An increase in construction projects will mean even more inexperienced workers will be hired. An influx of new, unskilled employees could materially change the risk profile of the construction industry. Additionally, demographic changes within the industry—especially an aging workforce and a higher percentage of immigrants in the workplace—are already creating health and safety challenges for contractors. These challenges are likely to grow as infrastructure projects pressure contractors to add new workers and retain their older employees.
