When insurers aren’t willing to do business with you, you know something is wrong. Their current unwillingness to offer policies to certain professions is a canary-in-the-coal-mine moment, pointing to troubling times ahead for the whole construction industry, as well as existing and future apartment owners.

Nadia Younan was forced out of the Zetland complex. Credit:Dominic Lorrimer, Supplied

Federal and state governments must urgently address problems that have festered for decades if we are to restore confidence in an industry critical to the Australian economy.

Amid the nightmare of building faults and evactions revealed at Sydney's Opal Tower and Mascot Towers, and following the high-rise fire at the Lacrossse apartments in Melbourne, the 30 owners of a water-damaged Zetland building have now been warned that a fire could cause its collapse – and they need to fix more than $5 million of defects with an insurance payout of only $1.7 million.

An immediate insurance challenge arises from a cladding crisis, sparked by the Lacrosse fire in 2014, which was followed by the Grenfell Tower catastrophe in London in 2017. Undoubtedly, this needs to be resolved as a priority, but it will be a pointless exercise unless electrical safety and non-conforming products are also addressed.