NSW Fair Trading has announced that NSW is to be the first jurisdiction in Australia to introduce a new insurance product that offers 10 years’ protection for buyers of residential apartments.
When making the announcement, Minister for Fair Trading Victor Dominello said the NSW Department of Customer Service has accepted the application of Resilience Insurance to offer decennial liability insurance as a form of security under the Strata Building Bond and Inspections Scheme.
“This is a big win for apartment owners and body corporates,” Mr Dominello said.
“Decennial liability gives power to the purchasers and body corporates, who will no longer need to prove liability and will only have to demonstrate the damage for assessment.
“For the first time in Australia, this will ensure building owners have access to a timely and straightforward remedy to remediate those defects.”
Under a decennial liability insurance scheme, developers or builders would take out a policy to cover any potential costs by an owner to fix serious defects of critical building elements for up to 10 years.
A decennial liability insurance policy would cover critical parts of a building’s common property, including the building’s structure, fire safety systems and waterproofing.
This insurance is intended to provide an insurance of first resort – allowing building owners to make a claim as soon as a defect is identified.
While this form of insurance is available in many markets around the world, it has not previously been offered in Australia.
Follow this link to read the full media release: nsw.gov.au – NSW leads the way with apartment defect insurance