QuestGates has acquired Richard Hartley Partnership, a Harrogate-based specialist in power and construction claims, giving contractors and insurers a single group with deeper technical capacity to handle complex construction-sector losses and liability disputes.

QuestGates, headquartered in Birmingham, is the UK's largest owner-managed loss adjusting and claims solutions group, operating from 12 offices across the UK and Ireland with more than 650 staff.

Richard Hartley Partnership, founded in 1999 and based in Harrogate, is a specialist loss adjuster covering power, energy, nuclear, construction, engineering and renewables, and will continue trading under its existing brand within the QuestGates group.

The deal is QuestGates' third acquisition of 2026, following Manchester liability specialist Howell Wild in July and City law firm Miles Fanning Legal through its QGLaw arm in February.

Group executive chairman Chris Hall said RHP shares many of QuestGates' core values and represents a strong strategic and cultural fit, while chief commercial officer Glen Donaldson said RHP's specialist capabilities had long been recognised within the group.

The RHP deal is QuestGates' third acquisition in eight months, and the sequencing matters more than any single transaction: QGLaw added legal services, Howell Wild added liability adjusting, and RHP now adds power and construction technical depth.

Construction and power losses demand engineering condition assessment, business interruption calculation across complex operational dependencies, and multi-party liability analysis spanning contractors, subcontractors and project owners, a skill combination that is difficult to recruit for in a tight loss adjuster talent market.

The timing lines up with a hardening risk picture: construction insurance premiums in Europe have risen 8 to 15 percent between 2024 and 2026, driven by claims complexity, extreme weather and the rise of modular construction, while separate broker warnings point to widespread underinsurance across UK contractors relative to project scale and cost.

For the sector, tighter underwriting and rising claims complexity are pushing specialist claims capability from a niche differentiator toward a baseline expectation, and consolidation among loss adjusters is one of the clearest signs that construction risk is being treated as a distinct discipline rather than a subset of general property claims.

Source: Insurance Business / Miller & Partner