Browsing by Author "Alwis, P"

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item: Article-Abstract
Awareness on insurance principles in construction industry
(2016-08-31) Karunasena, GI; Alwis, P
Unique characteristics of the construction industry from beginning to end in production process create, many uncertainties about its final products. Due to these uncertainties, emergence of risks is unavoidable. Dealing with these risks is a major area of concern in construction industry. One method to deal with these risks is to transfer it to a third party known as an insurer through an insurance contract. Purpose of this paper is to identify the degree of knowledge on insurance principles among the construction industry professionals. This paper covers the areas of insurance principles, knowledge on it and issues of application of them in insurance contracts. Questionnaire surveys and interviews were used as main data collection methods and descriptive analysis and narrative analysis was used to analyses data. The results suggest that awareness on insurance principles is inadequate among Sri Lankan construction professionals. It is also emphasized that knowledge gap between construction industry professionals and insurance providers lead to unpleasant situations at later stages of an insurance contract. These findings are limited to six major principles of insurance namely insurable interest, utmost good faith, proximate cause, indemnity, subrogation and contribution. This paper enhances knowledge among construction industry practitioners on principles of insurance and areas of application of them to reduce unsettled claims to optimize insurance as a risk transferring mechanism in Sri Lankan construction sector.
item: Conference-Abstract
Disruption claims in Sri Lankan construction industry
Jayasena, HS; Alwis, P; ;
'Claims' are common phenomena in construction. Among those claim situations, disruption is a very complex claim situation which is notoriously difficult to prove. In general there is no significant disruption claim practice in Sri Lanka. When a contractor is not compensated for a cost he is entitled for under the contract, an unfavourable status quo is given birth that the contractor would look for alternative means, such as spurious claims, to recover his cost. Therefore, a proper practice of disruption claims is a necessity. Thus the research was aimed to identify the reasons for poor disruption claims practice in Sri Lanka, in order to contribute the necessary know/edge to eliminate the above problem. First part of research tested the level of current knowledge of the key players in claims in the industry through an experimental study. Leading professionals dealing with contractual claims representing twelve contracting organizations participated in it. It was then supported by an exploratory element carried out through interviews among them and followed by a documentary survey within the respective organizations to review the site level document practice and associated problems. Fifteen factors are identified to lessen the occurrence of disruption claims while entitled disruptions do exist. Among them insufficient knowledge on disruption claims, was the dominant factor and interestingly most other factors were directly linked to it.