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Insurance company Willis has introduced an eight-point digital infrastructure framework that classifies data centres as a standalone systemic insurance class. The firm says the change reflects a change in the risk profile of data centres. It’s been influenced by the role DC assets now play in cloud and AI workloads.
Announcing the framework on 28 January, Willis states traditional approaches based on single-line property placements don’t reflect the operational nor financial reality of large data centre portfolios. In its view, modern facilities work as connected infrastructure with dependencies that include power, networks, and supply chains, and surmount geopolitics. Losses tend to be correlated in one policy or a single line-of-business.
Willis said it has secured in excess of $3 billion of insurance capacity for hyperscale developments, expecting the data centre segment to generate around $10 billion of premium in 2026, figures that show how the market has expanded, and a reassessment of how capital gets allocated to the sector.
George Haitsch, North America technology, media and telecoms industry leader at Willis, said data centres now resemble critical supply chain elements. Exposures are broader and more complex than those assumed in previous underwriting models. He said insurance needs to be structured as a framework that incorporates risk mitigation early in design and construction.
The firm describes its policy as stopping the treatment of data centres as high-limit property accounts and managing them as cross-class infrastructure portfolios. Under this view, property damage, construction risk, cybersecurity events, political influence, and operational interruption could each be contingent on other factors, and should be assessed as a whole. Willis said its framework is designed to address risk during a facility’s full lifecycle, with particular focus on balance sheet protection for DC owners and operators.
Energy security sits at the centre of such concerns. AI-driven campuses’ increased power consumption means the increased likelihood of business interruption losses being linked to grid failures. Such events can affect several sites simultaneously, particularly where facilities rely on the same infrastructure.
FM has said it insures around 1,100 data centres with a combined insurable value of roughly $250 billion, a figure that reflects the cost of the buildings and equipment and is indicative of the potential losses from business interruption and companies reneging on any service level agreements.
The market in data centre business interruption cover has expanded recently. A recent market analysis estimated global premiums for dedicated data centre business interruption insurance at about $3.9 billion in 2024, and there are projections that this might double by 2033. The higher economic dependence on continuous availability of DCs goes some way to explaining the growth in this segment.
The Willis framework shows how large brokers and insurers are repositioning data centres in their portfolios. Instead of DCs being a specialised corner of commercial property, facilities are increasingly considered as core digital infrastructure. In AI-focused economies, such a reclassification has implications for underwriting and risk accumulation that continue to evolve.
(Image source: “Neon Insurance Office Sign” by David Hilowitz is licensed under CC BY 2.0.)
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