Life underwriter’s term describing an impaired life where the additional risk will remain unchanged, i.e. proposer’s medical condition will neither worsen nor improve. See INCREASING EXTRA RISK; REDUCING EXTRA RISK.

CDM Regulations are aimed at improving the overall management and coordination of health and safety throughout all stages of a construction product. They place duties on the client, the designer, the principal contractor and the planner supervisor (a creation of CDM). They also introduce new documents – health and safety plans and the health and safety file. The planning supervisor must notify HSE of projects that will last more than 30 days or more than 500 person days of work.

The types of material used in the building and roofing of a structure. Construction types, e.g. brick or timber built, affect the risk as do the number of fire divisions in the building. Other construction factors affecting the risk include age and condition of electrical circuits, number of storeys, the building’s age and the type of heating system. Underwriters grade risks according to construction features.

1. The rules governing the interpretation of a policy which include the contra proferentem rule, the ordinary meaning rule, the ejusdem generis rule, the whole policy rule, the technical words rule and the written words prevail rule. 2. The First Schedule of the Marine Insurance Act 1906 contains the Rules for the Construction of the Policy.
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A Policy of Insurance is to be constructed like any other contract, it is to be constructed in the first place from the terms used in it, which terms are themselves to be understood in their primary sense. The meaning of a word in a Policy is that which an ordinary man of normal intelligence would place upon it, and understandable by ordinary persons.

Protects project owners against the risk of the ultimate cost of construction exceeding the original price and contingency allowances. Policy wordings are customer and contract specific.

1. Institute Cargo Clauses 1/1/82 provide that no constructive total loss claim will be recoverable unless an actual total loss appears unavoidable, or because costs of recovering the property and forwarding it to its destination would exceed its value on arrival. 2. International Hull Clauses 01/11/02 permits the insured to claim a constructive total loss if the repair costs exceed 80 per cent of the repaired value, i.e. insured value, of the property. This makes it easier for the insured to establish a constructive total loss but nothing obliges the insurer to accept the insured’s notice of abandonment. See ABANDONMENT.

Provides a uniform system of controlling all forms of credit supplied to individuals (including sole traders and partners). Controls lending through licensing and also controls individual credit agreements. Policy loans, ‘topping up loans’ and house purchase loans are within the Act.

Often an extension in household policies covers the insured and his family in respect of legal expenses involved in taking or defending legal action in a range of civil disputes (personal injury/personal goods; consumer protection; residential; employment; tax) up to £50,000. Defending certain criminal proceedings, e.g. motoring offences, may also be covered. Motoring prosecutions are also covered under motor legal expenses policies.