Growing Fast. The $10M Limit Challenge.

An experienced geotechnical engineer resigned from an established firm to launch their own practice. Within a couple of years the business was growing steadily, with revenue into the mid-six-figure range.

The scope of work covered geotechnical investigation, factual and interpretive reporting, site classification reports, land risk assessments, and soil parameter analysis for pile design on renewable energy infrastructure projects. The work spanned multiple states, with a mix of residential, commercial, and infrastructure clients.

The existing PI policy was $5 million, arranged through an online platform. But the growing project scale and scope of work demanded higher limits - $10 million per occurrence with $20 million in the aggregate. That's where the market tightened significantly.

We took the risk to a broad panel of underwriters, including specialist PI markets and open-market referral pathways. The submission emphasised the engineer's experience and established project track record as evidence of a mature practice despite the company's young incorporation date.

Each insurer received the full scope of activities, including the renewable energy infrastructure exposure, the revenue trajectory, and the $10M/$20M limit.

At $5 million, there are workable options for geotechnical PI. Doubling to $10 million per occurrence with $20 million aggregate significantly narrows the market and pushes premiums sharply upward.

One specialist insurer could quote $5 million but indicated a premium of $40,000 to $50,000 - expensive for this stage of the practice. Another insurer declined entirely, as they could only accommodate geotechnical engineering representing up to 10% of a firm's activities. For a pure-play geotech firm, that's an automatic decline.

The renewable energy infrastructure exposure added a further complication. Providing soil parameters for these projects introduces an exposure layer that some underwriters flag, even where the engineer is providing data inputs rather than doing the structural pile design itself.

The 10% rule on geotechnical classification is a recurring barrier across the market. Insurers will happily cover geotech as an incidental part of a broader engineering practice, but a firm doing geotechnical work as its core business faces a much narrower panel.