Even in the friendliest placement environment in years, contractors are carrying gaps they don't realize they have, and two exposures top the list, according to Robert Manson (pictured), managing partner of Mitch Insurance's Durham Region branch: cyber and pollution.
"A lot of the stuff we're still seeing is the cyber liability and pollution liability risks many contractors don't believe apply to them until something goes wrong," Manson said.
On cyber, his concern is less about any single threat than about the pace of change outrunning attention. The industry is entering a world of large language models, AI coding software and digital AI agents, he said, and not enough people are seriously weighing what that means for their operations. It is a shift he admits unsettles him personally.
"I don't believe enough people are seriously considering the level of risk that's present now, or only going to increase over the coming 12 months," Manson said.
The question he poses is whether contractors, or entrepreneurs generally, truly understand their digital infrastructure, their digital security, and the inherent risks that come with a changing time. The mindset he encounters instead assumes the exposure belongs to someone else.
"They appear to assume, I live in the physical world, what could happen to me," he said. "My concern is that most won't fully appreciate the exposure until it either happens to themselves or within their industry."
The digital layer is there whether or not the work feels physical, he said. Contractors still run cloud systems, still depend on project management software, and still face invoice fraud and wire fraud exposure. None of that requires a company to think of itself as a technology business – it comes with operating one in 2026.
Pollution follows the same pattern of underappreciation, Manson said, and in an older city, the exposure is baked into the building stock itself.
"A number of our contractors just seem not to appreciate that working in an older city like Toronto, every potential renovation on an older commercial building, every older residential building, carries the possibility of disturbing a pollutant that we may not even know was there," he said.
More than a century of urban history leaves plenty to disturb: contaminated soil uncovered through excavation, asbestos in older buildings, lead, and potential fuel spills. Any one of them can surface mid-project, on a site where nobody knew it was waiting.
"There's a lot," Manson said. "It seems underappreciated."
The counterweight to both gaps, in his telling, is risk management discipline, which in the current market has become something more than loss prevention. Asked what contractors and developers should be doing differently, Manson first added a qualifier to the premise: calling it a good market really means a good market from an insurance premium standpoint. The economic climate underneath is harder. Many of his contractor clients are struggling to secure the same size of jobs they were getting before, he said, with less construction activity to go around. A favourable insurance climate, in other words, is landing on businesses that have less room for error elsewhere – which makes the discipline more valuable, not less.
His working list for clients is specific: review contracts thoroughly, update equipment lists and values, review insurance limits, communicate changes in business operations early and often, vet subcontractors, keep certificates of insurance, and maintain documented safety procedures. Carriers love to see that, Manson said, and underwriters love to see it. The same discipline applies when something does go wrong: in the event of a claim, document heavily, keep a file, take notes.
The payoff shows up in terms, not just price.
"Risk management is a competitive advantage," Manson said, and the reason comes down to how underwriting actually works.
"The contractors getting the best insurance terms today aren't necessarily the easiest risks to underwrite," he said. "They're just the easiest risks for underwriters to understand."
The ones who can communicate their risk properly, he added, are seeing preferential premiums, good deductibles, strong limits and good coverage – the full shape of a placement, not just the number at the bottom.
