Architects are facing “a shitty few years” as professional indemnity insurance becomes even harder to find and premiums go up, the chairman of a specialist dispute resolution firm has warned.

The nine-year extension to the deadline for claims over shoddy work contained in the Building Safety Bill will only make the situation tougher as jittery underwriters anticipate a flood of lawsuits, said Roger Flaxman.

“The insurance market has to a certain extent been taken by surprise by the Grenfell fire and everything that has emerged since about how endemic the risks are to the whole construction process,” he said.

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