With construction volume down and the cost of defending claims up, major insurers providing professional liability coverage to architects and engineers all plan to raise rates in 2011, according to a new market survey by Ames & Gough, an insurance broker and risk consultant.
The trend, based on responses from insurers representing 70% of the U.S. market for this coverage, is the first across-the-board increase in several years, says Dan Knise, chief executive of the McLean, Va.-based company.