London Market: renewables in a ‘different place by end of year’, says panel

Insurers seem to be picking up the tab for technology design errors and tweaks, says expert at an Intelligent Insurer discussion.

The London Market is seeing a particularly strong appetite for renewable energy, but for insurers looking to jump on the bandwagon one expert has some words of caution.

As the renewables industry, and its technology, develop at a fast pace insurers could see a significant rise in attritional losses, according to Peter Fitzsimmons, head of onshore renewable energy at Axis Insurance. The development and rollout of gigantic 5 megawatt wind turbines, for example, is not without its challenges.

“Our whole industry has historically been one that experiences a fair amount of attritional losses. Those attritional losses are suddenly going to become significant when turbines of that size are having the losses we would have seen on 2 or 2.5 megawatt machines five years ago,” Fitzsimmons said.