Among the many industries suffering from the dual impact of COVID-19 and severe weather events, few would want to trade places with the real estate sector. Between tenants having difficulty paying rent or trying to break leases, a myriad of rules around COVID-19 safety, volatile construction material and labor costs, and record-breaking hurricane and wildfire...
Like nearly every industry, the Covid-19 pandemic has rattled the commercial real estate (CRE) sector. As businesses reopen, owners are being forced to make tough decisions, such as whether or not they should continue to rent office space. Consequently, landlords and other CRE investors may see a continued impact on their revenue stream. As experts...
Premises liability is a legal concept that stems from circumstances where an injury is caused by an unsafe or defective condition on property someone either owns or occupies, and insured commercial property operators must understand the importance of gathering and preserving evidence when an accident occurs to help mitigate extremely costly claims. Whether the property...
While modern building codes and structural engineering have made buildings extremely safe, facilities managers must maintain a high level of upkeep for them to remain that way. As buildings age, they can lose their structural integrity. As such, if simple repairs are left untended, they can balloon into bigger issues, potentially causing significant damage that...
The U.S. agency that regulates workplace safety issued guidance on Friday urging employers to require many fully vaccinated workers to wear masks to protect unvaccinated colleagues and customers, amid a surge in COVID-19 cases. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) recommended that workers wear masks “in areas of substantial or high community transmission,” such...
We recently interviewed CMR’s Principal/President and Surety Practice Group Leader, Travis Pearson on the top questions that we receive regarding the LIHTC Recapture Bond. While the IRS no longer requires a disposition bond (IRS form 8693) to avoid tax credit recapture in the event of ownership disposition in a Low Income Housing Tax Credit Section...
Intending to recognize additional catastrophic exposures on workers’ comp systems that can impact ratemaking, the National Council on Compensation Insurance (NCCI) is proposing that any event exceeding $50 million in losses be excluded from the data used to set rates, including future pandemics. Other than certified acts of terrorism, NCCI’s catastrophe provision only accounts for single-event losses...
Builder’s risk insurance provides property coverage for buildings and structures that are under construction. If you’re a builder or a commercial property owner, you could face considerable monetary loss if something goes wrong with the construction of a building if you don’t have builder’s risk insurance. This coverage is also known as “course of construction...
As vaccinations ramp up and Covid-19 transmissions decline, the journey toward normalcy seems just about over. Because of that, I believe commercial real estate generally and office space specifically remain sound investments. However, the pandemic has forever changed the way corporations and workers use these assets and, as a result, how investors should think about...
Around the one-year mark since the start of the pandemic, markets began to experience the lasting effects of the challenges presented to them in 2020. While I’m hopeful that there is light at the end of the COVID-19 tunnel, we’ll likely see hardening market conditions persist throughout 2021. Below, I explore in-depth some of the...