Counterpart Tackles AI and Tech Risks in Construction with New Liability Coverage

LOS ANGELES, CA – January 20, 2026 – As the global construction industry grapples with increasingly complex, technology-driven projects, insurance provider Counterpart has launched a new professional liability offering aimed at Architects, Engineers, and Construction Professionals (A&E) to address critical gaps left by traditional policies. The new product provides clear, affirmative coverage for modern exposures, including technology services, pollution, and the rapidly emerging risks associated with artificial intelligence.

This move comes as the construction sector, projected to swell to $16.3 trillion by 2025, undergoes a profound transformation. Firms are adopting advanced tools like Building Information Modeling (BIM), cloud-based collaboration platforms, and AI-assisted design workflows to manage larger projects under tighter deadlines. However, the insurance policies meant to protect them have often failed to keep pace, leaving firms exposed to significant financial and legal vulnerabilities.

The Widening Cracks in Traditional Coverage

For years, professional liability policies for the A&E sector have been a source of growing uncertainty. Many legacy forms are either vague or entirely silent on how they cover liabilities arising from digital tools and AI, creating a precarious situation for both insured firms and the brokers who place their coverage. This ambiguity is no longer a theoretical problem.

Industry data reveals a troubling trend of rising claim severity against A&E firms. In 2024, over half of A&E insurers reported an increase in the severity of claims, a significant jump from the previous year, with some individual claims now exceeding $20 million. These claims often stem from design errors, project delays, and contractual disputes—all areas now being complicated by technology.

"The unsupervised use of AI, for example, introduces a host of challenges, from copyright infringement to liability for errors in automated designs," explained a risk management consultant specializing in the A&E sector. "If an AI model pulls an outdated building code or produces a flawed design that gets replicated across a project, determining liability becomes a nightmare under policies that never contemplated such a scenario."

Beyond AI, traditional policies frequently contain explicit exclusions for pollution-related incidents or offer inadequate limits for cyber risks. As A&E firms handle vast amounts of sensitive client data and proprietary designs, they become prime targets for cybercriminals. A data breach or ransomware attack can be financially devastating, yet many professional liability policies co-mingle cyber coverage with the main policy limit, which can be quickly exhausted by a single event, leaving the firm exposed to other professional claims.

A New Blueprint for A&E Insurance

Counterpart aims to solve these issues with its new Architects, Engineers, and Construction Professionals Professional Liability offering. Built on the company's "Agentic Insurance™" platform, which combines AI with insurance expertise, the product is designed to provide clarity where ambiguity currently reigns. The company states its policy includes explicit, affirmative language for technology services, pollution, and AI-related exposures for both design and design-build firms.

This approach directly confronts the problem of "silent AI" coverage, where policies neither explicitly include nor exclude AI-related risks. The new offering also features a modular form that allows for coverage enhancements, including for rectification expenses—costs incurred to fix a design flaw before it becomes a larger liability—and faulty workmanship.

“Today’s A&E firms are working faster, using more technology, and facing tougher contractual requirements than ever,” said Nick Rotondo, who is leading the new product's strategy as Director (MPL, A&E) at Counterpart. “Brokers shouldn’t have to stitch together multiple policies just to meet an abuse requirement or clarify how AI exposure will be treated. We built this offering to deliver a single, modern form with packaged abuse coverage and clear language around use of technology, so brokers can place complex risks with speed and confidence.”

Navigating a Polarized and High-Stakes Market

The launch arrives at a critical moment for the construction market. Stephen Turner, Executive Vice President at RT ProExec, described the current environment as a “real tug of war between reserved economic worries, labor shortages, and policy uncertainties amid the explosive growth in data centers and AI infrastructure investments which continues to drive massive project pipelines.”

This explosive growth creates immense opportunities but also magnifies risk. In a notable divergence of strategy, while Counterpart is affirmatively covering AI, some of the insurance industry's largest players are reportedly moving in the opposite direction. Several major carriers have begun seeking regulatory approval to introduce new policy language that explicitly limits or excludes liability for losses arising from the use of artificial intelligence. This defensive posture from legacy insurers threatens to widen the coverage gap for A&E firms that are increasingly reliant on AI to remain competitive.

"Underwriters are rightly concerned about professionals recklessly using chatbots or other AI tools that could lead to inaccurate advice or a wrongful professional act," noted one senior underwriter at a competing firm. "Many of us are now demanding to see a 'risk-aware culture' and a diligent corporate policy outlining how AI is used, monitored, and controlled before we even consider the risk."

Counterpart's strategy is to underwrite that risk directly by leveraging its own AI-driven platform to better assess and price it, a move that could set a new industry standard if successful.

Empowering Brokers with AI-Driven Efficiency

A central pillar of the company's strategy is its focus on the wholesale broker. The new A&E offering is designed to streamline the complex and often time-consuming process of placing coverage for design and design-build firms. By providing brokers with direct access to experienced underwriters, in-house claims professionals, and contract review services, the platform aims to reduce friction and increase placement speed.

This model reflects the company's broader "Agentic Broker Services™" philosophy, which uses technology to empower human experts. The company saw strong validation for this approach with its Allied Healthcare launch in 2023, which targeted similar coverage gaps in a field being rapidly transformed by digital-enabled care and AI diagnostics. That launch generated significant demand from brokers, demonstrating an appetite for modern insurance solutions in underserved markets.

By offering a clear, comprehensive, and tech-forward policy, Counterpart is betting that brokers will gravitate toward the certainty and efficiency its platform provides, especially when navigating the high-stakes, rapidly evolving world of construction liability.