Construction project design liability insurance refers to the professional liability insurance with the economic compensation liability that should be borne by the construction project designer for the loss or cost caused by the project quality accident due to the negligence or fault in design as the subject matter of insurance.It is one of the earliest occupational insurance in our country. Namely, within the insurance period of design liability insurance and insurance liability scope, as a result of the negligence or fault of engineering design personnel, the engineering quality accident caused, the insurance company assumes the economic compensation responsibility of corresponding loss or cost.

Construction engineering design liability insurance emerged in the early 21st century, which is an effective insurance supplement to the long-term design risk protection loophole in the construction market at that time. At that time, the domestic economy was in the stage of rapid development, and the demand for various infrastructure construction increased. The scale and investment of engineering projects continued to increase, and the corresponding engineering design risks also increased. Once there is an accident loss caused by engineering design responsibility, the designer's compensation scheme agreed in the design contract alone cannot make up for the high economic loss suffered by the owner. In addition, the design company does not have enough economic compensation ability objectively. The emergence of construction engineering design liability insurance, on the one hand, ensures the compensation ability of the engineering designer, and helps to improve the risk sharing and guarantee mechanism among different liability subjects in the construction market; On the other hand, insurance needs to pass the examination of insurance companies, design units with good reputation, reliable design quality and high design level can obtain insurance qualification, which not only reduces the possible design risks, but also improves the entrance threshold of engineering project design, and avoids the hidden dangers of engineering quality brought by the low-price design winning the bid.

In fact, the majority of design units are familiar with and unfamiliar with engineering design liability insurance. Familiar because the country began to promote very early, strange because really go to deal with this kind of insurance is very few. The actual reasons for less insurance, I think, are mainly in these two aspects: the first is the economic reason. "The economic base determines the superstructure", and money comes first. The current design market situation determines that the design fee that the design unit can receive is really too low. Many design units in order to save costs, even drawing necessary CAD software are reluctant to buy legitimate, not to mention this kind of non-essential, non-mandatory design liability insurance?

The second reason is technical. The vast majority of construction projects are actually very mature design, and there is not much technical risk. Whether it is to design a house or to design a road and bridge, the other people's design units have been repeated N times. The actual situation is also the same, the engineering quality accidents caused by design reasons are far less than the engineering quality accidents caused by construction reasons. The design is prone to problems, often "fat beam fat column" type of uneconomic, or is not humane, but this is not the project quality accident, also not in the insurance coverage. For some industrial projects, there may be certain technical risks, but these technical risks are usually focused on process equipment. Even if it is necessary to resolve these technical risks through commercial insurance, it is not mainly by design liability insurance, but by scientific and technological liability insurance or product liability insurance. If the design quality accident of the whole industry occurs frequently, the probability of risk occurrence is like traffic accident, so, without the designer to take the initiative to propose, the construction unit must also take the initiative to insure. If so, design liability insurance will certainly become the "compulsory insurance" of the design industry.

（Writer：Ciki）