Real Estate

With a diverse book of real estate insurance clients, ranging from small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) through to multinationals, our Real Estate team works with clients to realise the advantages to be gained from managing risk more strategically. From helping our clients to understand their total cost of risk across a range of commercial and residential asset classes, to eliminating long-tail risk from the purchase or sale of property, we free up capital for the next commercial opportunity.

We are one of the leading providers of insurance broking and risk management services to the real estate sector, including:

• Property companies
• Managing agents
• Pension funds
• Hedge funds
• Developers
• Landed estates
• Fund/asset mangers
• Private equity
• Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs)
• Charities
• Banks
• Solicitors

Our expertise and high level of service are built upon our understanding of the real estate sector, which enables us to identify your needs and provide tailored solutions to meet them.

Our Property division is split into regionally focused teams which work across the real estate and hospitality sector to provide brokers with the experience, resource and expertise they need to secure the best possible renewal outcomes within any given market environment.

Offering a range of coverages from Natural Catastrophe to All Risks Property Damage and Business Interruption, complemented by claims management, exposure management and coverage analysis, we work with some of the largest portfolios of retail, real estate, hospitality, public entity and industrial business in the world.

With close to USD 1 billion in premium, our Property and Casualty (P&C) division is 155 people strong — making us one of the largest specialty P&C brokers globally.

Our Legal Indemnities team can help protect against the risk of third party claims arising from a legal defect or challenge to the ownership or development of assets. These risks are usually discovered during the due diligence process and need comprehensive, personalised policies that provide solutions in short timeframes.

These are the types of risks we cover:

• Rights of Light
• Title to Shares — covering the ownership of shares being transferred as part of a corporate transaction; including lack of or missing share title
• Title defects — restrictive covenants, easements, mines and minerals, and adverse possession
• Planning defects — planning permission and building regulations, lack of section 104 agreements or discharge of Section 106 agreement
• Other defects — lease defects, judicial review, search indemnities, abortive planning costs and public procurement insurance
• Portfolio Title Insurance — We can arrange cover for all unknown risks that property titles may be subject to. This is particularly useful when acquiring or refinancing a large portfolio, often with multiple title deeds and plans.

Our Lenders Due Diligence team has a wealth of experience working collaboratively with all types of real estate lenders, in order to simplify transactions and provide expert advice with regards to the insurance work stream.

Lending is a complex process, whether on single assets or a portfolio of assets across a number of territories. Our aim is to remove the complexity from the insurance work stream, relieving the lender and their legal team of any burden. We do this by working with the Borrower's insurance team to ensure the insurances meet the requirements set out in the loan agreement.

Benefits of our Lenders Due Diligence team:

• Industry expertise. The team consists of property insurance specialists with vast experience placing real estate risks into the insurance markets, giving a great perspective when advising lenders about what's achievable.
• Focus on Deal Timelines. Transactions are extremely time-sensitive; the teams' industry knowledge allows them to coach the Borrower's broker and ensure potential issues are flagged and resolved quickly. This allows ample time to finalise the insurance work stream within the deal deadline.
• Effective reporting. Broker Letters of Undertaking provide a great final reference point for a transaction. Our Red Amber Green (RAG) reports, however, allow for real-time updates as to the progress of the insurance stream and explicitly raises any discussion points throughout the process.

Comprised of corporate lawyers, tax specialists, ex-mergers and acquisitions (M&A) underwriters and insurance experts, our Transactional Risks team works globally across mid-market (GBP10 million to GBP500mn) transactions in all sectors. We partner with corporate lawyers, mid-market private equity firms, corporate finance firms and institutional investors, and can also offer US-style coverage for UK law deals. The transactional products that we have the ability to place in the market include the following:

• Warranty and Indemnity (W&I)
• Distressed M&A
• Global Tax Insurance
• Contingent risk insurance (CRI)
• Insurance Due Diligence (IDD)

To complement and support the insurance products our Transactional Risks team advises upon, our in-house M&A claims team represents our clients' interests, and where appropriate, looks to leverage our position in the market to get claims paid.