As mass timber moves from selective adoption to mainstream consideration, insurance has emerged as one of the most influential factors shaping its uptake. While the material’s sustainability and construction benefits are well understood, concerns around fire performance, durability and loss exposure have historically made insurers cautious - often determining whether projects progress beyond early design.
This challenge is not new. In 2020, G&T’s Mass Timber Forum identified insurance as a primary barrier to wider uptake, reflecting a market constrained by limited data, inconsistent guidance and a lack of shared understanding between project teams and underwriters. Five years on, the landscape has evolved. Clearer risk frameworks, improved performance evidence and closer collaboration across the industry are reshaping how mass timber is assessed and priced.
While standardisation and data sharing remain critical to achieving full market maturity, the conversation has shifted decisively. Insurance is no longer solely about whether mass timber can be covered, but about how risk can be understood, managed and integrated into delivery with confidence. Increasingly, mass timber is moving from perceived risk to measured opportunity.
A Changing Insurance Landscape
The publication of the Mass Timber Insurance Playbook, developed by Built by Nature and a consortium of industry partners, helped address many of the early uncertainties surrounding timber by setting out clear, practical risk management principles.
Further resources, including Built by Nature’s New Model Building (2023) and Commercial Timber Guidebook (2024), have provided consistent technical and regulatory frameworks for assessing risk. Together, these have informed the Government’s Timber in Construction Roadmap, which identifies insurance as a “priority theme” and explores the creation of an anonymised risk register to support data-driven underwriting.
In 2025, insurers increasingly explored portfolio-based underwriting for timber assets, moving from case-by-case exceptions to structured portfolios. Several major UK insurers are now participating in Built by Nature’s working groups, developing common benchmarks for hybrid structures and integrating shared testing data into internal pricing models. These initiatives are turning bespoke underwriting into a more standardised and evidence-based process.
Greater Understanding and Appetite
Insurers now have a clearer picture of the real-world performance of mass timber buildings. With more schemes in design, construction and operation, the industry has built a robust dataset demonstrating how early design coordination, fire protection, moisture control and maintenance strategies can mitigate perceived risks.
As Dominic Lion of Gallagher notes, “this increased appetite is filtering, albeit more slowly, through into the property insurance market as more completed schemes come forward.”
While premiums and exclusions still vary, several underwriters are adopting a more nuanced approach, differentiating between hybrid and full-timber structures and rewarding projects that demonstrate rigorous testing and early risk management. This marks a shift from avoidance to informed engagement, underpinned by transparency and technical assurance.
“Insurance has never been about avoiding mass timber - it has been about understanding it. As data improves and risk is addressed earlier through design, procurement and construction planning, the conversation shifts from exception to expectation. That’s where real progress is being made.”
Designing for Insurability - 2 Copper Square
This approach is reflected in G&T’s work at 2 Copper Square, where early engagement with insurers and the wider project team was integral to shaping a viable mass timber strategy. By embedding fire and moisture risk considerations at concept stage, aligning structural design with insurer expectations and maintaining clear documentation throughout delivery, the project demonstrated how proactive risk management can support insurability without compromising design intent.
The outcome reinforces the value of early coordination and evidence-led decision-making in translating mass timber ambition into insurable, deliverable projects.
Looking to the Future: Data and Standardisation
The next phase of progress will depend on scaling data availability and ensuring consistency across the industry. Wider adoption of third-party certification, digital design models and post-completion monitoring will help insurers benchmark risk with greater accuracy and confidence.
As policy frameworks and datasets mature, insurers will be better equipped to price timber more predictably, paving the way for portfolio-level underwriting and, ultimately, greater investment confidence.
For G&T, the priority is to help clients translate evolving insurance criteria into practical project strategies - integrating risk management, material performance and design assurance from the outset. As data, delivery and underwriting continue to converge, the market is entering a new era of informed confidence.
How G&T Helps
Unlocking the potential of mass timber requires more than technical compliance. It depends on early clarity around risk, insurability and long-term performance, and on aligning design ambition with the realities of underwriting and delivery.
G&T works with clients at the earliest stages of mass timber projects to integrate insurance considerations into decision-making from the outset. By bringing together Cost Management, Project Management and market insight, we help teams understand how design choices, procurement strategies and construction sequencing influence risk profile, insurability and cost certainty.
Our approach is grounded in evidence. Drawing on market intelligence, insurer engagement and experience across timber and hybrid projects, we support clients in testing options against insurer expectations, embedding fire and moisture mitigation strategies early, and maintaining robust documentation throughout delivery. This reduces uncertainty, avoids late-stage redesign and supports more informed, transparent discussions with brokers and underwriters.
As data, standards and underwriting practices continue to evolve, the challenge for clients is not ambition but confidence. By combining data-led analysis with practical delivery experience, G&T helps clients navigate the insurance landscape with clarity – translating evolving guidance into insurable, deliverable and commercially robust mass timber projects.
Look back at the findings from G&T’s Mass Timber Forum - read our reports here.
