John Elliott (pictured) has launched Elliott & Associates Risk Management, a construction-focused brokerage operating through the Coversure Network and based in East Grinstead, West Sussex.
Elliott brings 25 years of commercial insurance experience to the venture, with a specialism in construction and contractor risk. He began his career as an account handler at Marsh before moving through senior roles at Clear Group/Konsileo, Amicus and Plan Insurance Brokers, where he served as head of commercial. The new brokerage operates under its own brand identity within the Coversure franchise, which is part of Jensten Group - a top-10 independent UK broker placing more than £650 million in gross written premium.
Elliott said he was launching into a sector he knows well, with the backing of the Coversure Network's trading infrastructure and market relationships behind him.
Construction recorded 3,841 company insolvencies in England and Wales in the 12 months to July 2026, the highest absolute total of any industry sector, according to the Insolvency Service, and representing 17% of all cases where an industry was captured. Specialist contractors and subcontractors account for the largest share of those failures, with electrical, plumbing and finishing trades consistently the most affected sub-sectors.
For brokers placing construction risk, supply chain insolvency is not an abstract concern. A contractor or subcontractor failing mid-project can trigger contract works claims, create gaps in the risk transfer structure that a developer or main contractor assumed was intact, and leave a principal with a performance bond claim that was never expected to be called. The coverage structure that works for a project with a financially stable supply chain looks very different from one where counterparty solvency is genuinely uncertain.
The Building Safety Regulator became an independent body in January 2026, adding a formal compliance layer for contractors working on higher-risk buildings. Brokers placing cover for contractors operating under the Gateway regime need to understand what that regulatory framework requires - not just at placement, but through the project lifecycle - to place cover that actually responds to the exposures their clients are running.
Construction professional indemnity is softening. WTW's March 2026 market update forecast UK construction PI renewal rates falling between 5% and 10% in 2026, with reductions of up to 20% for well-managed risks. Insurers are competing more aggressively for quality construction PI business than at any point in the past several years.
That is broadly positive for clients - but a softening market introduces its own advisory complexity. When underwriters are competing on price, coverage quality differences between policies become harder to identify at a headline level and easier to miss without close wording analysis. A construction PI policy that appears broadly equivalent to a competitor's at a cheaper premium may carry materially different positions on collateral warranty obligations, design-and-build responsibility, or fire safety-related exclusions - precisely the areas where WTW and other market analysts note that insurers continue to apply selective scrutiny even as headline rates fall.
Contractors working on residential schemes, higher-rise buildings or projects with fire safety exposure are likely to see less benefit from the softening market than the headline figures suggest. For those clients specifically, the broker's role is not simply to secure the cheapest available premium, but to identify which insurers are genuinely competing for that risk and which are pricing it low because they have narrowed the cover.
The Coversure Network gives Elliott access to established insurer panels and market relationships from day one - a meaningful structural advantage for a start-up brokerage placing specialist construction risk, where access to the right underwriters is often as important as the premium itself.
