DEMITONResearch / Missed claims statistics
Missed claims: what it costs a construction contractor
Variations, extensions of time, delay costs and retention the contract allowed and nobody claimed in time. Includes weather.
The record holds 6 figures on missed claims from 6 sources. Queensland: 2 figures, including 36.9% of the amount claimed (Share of the amount claimed in Queensland adjudication dismissed for no jurisdiction (246 decisions, 2022-23)).
Updated 2026-09-25 · release data-latest-4-g72a88f5 · all five diseases
Money at stake · Australia · moderate confidence
Money at stake · UK · moderate confidence
Dashed line: planned gross margin on Australian civil and transport work (9.89%)
Grey: money at stake, which is not necessarily lost.
Every figure
| Figure | Of | What it measures | Where | Confidence | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 36.9% | of the amount claimed | Share of the amount claimed in Queensland adjudication dismissed for no jurisdiction (246 decisions, 2022-23) | QLD | moderate | Adjudicate Today (2023) |
| 9% | of construction cost | Contract variations as a share of project cost, Queensland public infrastructure (QAO audit) | QLD | moderate | Queensland Audit Office (2022) |
| 10.6% | of contract value | Client-approved change orders, 67 Australian public infrastructure projects | Australia | moderate | Love, Irani, Smith, Regan & Liu (2017) |
| A$2,010 | per wet day (2025 AUD) | Time-related site overhead per working day, Australian estimators | Australia | low | O'Leary & Vaz-Serra (2025) |
| 4.9% | of contract value | Average retention held, 419 clients and 508 contractors (UK) | UK | moderate | Pye Tait Consulting for BEIS (2017) |
| No figure | nobody has published a defensible one | No published figure for weather cost as a share of contract value | UK | low | Ballesteros-Perez, Smith, Lloyd-Papworth & Cooke (2018) |
Questions and answers
How much money do contractors leave unclaimed in variations, extensions of time and delay costs?
Other figures in the record: 36.9% of the amount claimed (QLD); 9% of construction cost (QLD); 10.6% of contract value (Australia); A$2,010 per wet day (2025 AUD) (Australia).
Is there Queensland evidence on missed claims?
36.9% of the amount claimed: Share of the amount claimed in Queensland adjudication dismissed for no jurisdiction (246 decisions, 2022-23) (Adjudicate Today, 2023; QLD; moderate confidence). 9% of construction cost: Contract variations as a share of project cost, Queensland public infrastructure (QAO audit) (Queensland Audit Office, 2022; QLD; moderate confidence).
How reliable is the missed claims figure?
There is no headline figure for this disease yet.
The evidence
36.9%of the amount claimedShare of the amount claimed in Queensland adjudication dismissed for no jurisdiction (246 decisions, 2022-23)QLDModerate confidenceMoney at stake
What it is. 36.9% of the total amount claimed across 246 adjudication decisions: claims the adjudicator could not decide at all.
Sample. 246 published Queensland adjudication decisions, March 2022 to August 2023; 66 (26.8%) were no-jurisdiction decisions.
What it is not. A nominating authority's own count of published decisions, not the regulator's statistics. A no-jurisdiction decision means the claim failed on procedure, such as timing or form, not on its merits, and the claimant may have other routes to recover, so this is money put at risk by procedure rather than a proven loss.
Our arithmetic. $70,119,333.18 claimed in no-jurisdiction decisions / $189,905,327.50 claimed across all 246 decisions = 0.3692 (the author calls it 'almost 37%').
Where it came from
- Adjudicate Today (2023), What is happening under the Building Industry Fairness (Security of Payment) Act 2017 QLD?article body, the author's tally of 246 Queensland decisions · source record
9%of construction costContract variations as a share of project cost, Queensland public infrastructure (QAO audit)QLDModerate confidenceMoney at stake
What it is. 9% of the cost of the projects examined: over A$127 million in contract variations.
Sample. The Queensland Government infrastructure projects (mostly schools and public buildings) examined in QAO Report 16: 2021-22. One project, Fortitude Valley State Secondary College, reached 21.5% of its original contract value.
What it is not. A handful of audited building projects, not a sample of Queensland civil work. The denominator is total project cost, not the original contract value. Variations are money the client agreed to pay, the size of the pot, not a contractor loss. Corroborates the 10.6% change-order figure (67 Australian projects) from a Queensland regulator.
Where it came from
- Queensland Audit Office (2022), Contract management for new infrastructure (Report 16: 2021-22) · free copy'Audit conclusions'; definition of contract variation under 'Are contract variations effectively managed?' · source record
10.6%of contract valueClient-approved change orders, 67 Australian public infrastructure projectsAustraliaModerate confidenceMoney at stake
What it is. 10.6% of original contract value, client-approved change orders.
Sample. 67 completed public infrastructure projects from one contractor, Australia, civil. Mean change orders were about AU$5.1m and made up 11% of work value 2011-2014.
What it is not. SIZE OF THE POT, NOT A LOSS. No study measures how much of it a typical contractor fails to claim. Change orders were linked to HIGHER contractor margins, which is the opposite of a loss.
Where it came from
- Love, Irani, Smith, Regan & Liu (2017), Cost Performance of Public Infrastructure Projects: The Nemesis and Nirvana of Change-Orders · free copyTable 2; accepted manuscript, Change-Orders section · source record
A$2,010per wet day (2025 AUD)Time-related site overhead per working day, Australian estimatorsAustraliaLow confidenceContractor loss
What it is. AUD per working day at the high end (AU$870 at the low end), 20 wet days is AU$17,400 to AU$40,300.
Range A$870 to A$2,010 (scenario)
Sample. 30 senior Australian estimators put about 45.49% of preliminaries as time-related for the whole job; preliminaries are 10-20% of the contract sum. On a $5M job that is AU$870 to AU$2,010 per working day, depending on the overhead rate and the working days in the year.
What it is not. A WORKED EXAMPLE, NOT A MEASUREMENT. Both inputs are weaker than we would like: the 10-20% preliminaries figure is a UK 2002 number cited second-hand, and the estimators' survey was mostly building work. No open Australian civil source gives either number. Use your own rates if you have them. The unit is per wet day, so this figure is never multiplied by a contract value. Price year taken from the source's data year; not yet confirmed against the source's tables.
Our arithmetic. Worked on a $5M contract. High end: 5,000,000 x 20% preliminaries x 45.49% time-related = 454,900 a year, / 226 working days = 2,013, shown as 2,010. Low end: 5,000,000 x 10% x 45.49% = 227,450 a year, / 261 working days = 871, shown as 870. The 45.49% is table 6; the 10% to 20% is the introduction, citing Chan & Pasquire 2002.
Where it came from
- O'Leary & Vaz-Serra (2025), Challenges in pricing preliminaries costs for contractors: An Australian case studyintroduction citing Chan & Pasquire 2002; table 6 (30 Australian estimators) · source record
4.9%of contract valueAverage retention held, 419 clients and 508 contractors (UK)UKModerate confidenceMoney at stake
What it is. 4.9% of contract value, held until the defects liability period ends.
Sample. 419 clients and 508 contractors surveyed, UK, all construction. Retention was not received back at all after the defects liability period on 5% of tier-1, 10.8% of tier-2 and 13.1% of tier-3 contracts.
What it is not. The money is held, not lost, until it is not returned. UK data from 2017 with no comparable Australian study; the authors say some tier differences are not statistically robust.
Where it came from
- Pye Tait Consulting for BEIS (2017), Retentions in the Construction Industryexecutive summary; table p.92 · source record
No figurenobody has published a defensible oneNo published figure for weather cost as a share of contract valueUKLow confidenceContractor loss
What it is. None - the only share-of-cost figures found are a single residential project and a perception survey.
Sample. UK national weather data and standard building activities; a model with a worked example, not observed projects. Found UK weather extends durations by an average of 21%.
What it is not. Recorded as `none` on purpose. The research pass found only two cost-as-percent figures: 4% on one Sydney apartment project (sponsored content, residential) and 23.8% from a Pakistani perception survey the pass called implausible. Neither is a benchmark, so this register holds no ratio rather than a convenient one. See weather_wet_day_overhead for what IS measured.
Where it came from
- Ballesteros-Perez, Smith, Lloyd-Papworth & Cooke (2018), Incorporating the effect of weather in construction scheduling and management with sine wave curvesabstract · source record