The $7 trillion question: who’s equipped to insure the AI age?
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In a market growing as fast as data-center insurance, having the biggest team means nothing without the deepest expertise
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In today’s specialized insurance market, being the biggest doesn’t necessarily mean being the best. Because when it comes to something as nuanced as technology or property or cyber insurance, it’s not about the size of your team – it’s about their level of expertise.
Nowhere is this need for highly specialized knowledge more important right now than in the emerging world of data centers. Data centers are expanding rapidly as demand for AI and cloud infrastructure grows, with the US boasting 4,184 data centers – more than any other country worldwide. What’s more, according to Axios, a further 3,000 new data centers are currently being built or planned in the coming years.
“This sector is growing fast,” says Jeff Bellmont, SVP at Intact Insurance. “Both in terms of the number of data centers as well as the size and scope of those data centers. The contents of these centers are growing, the number of square feet is growing, and what they’re being used for is changing very fast.
Intact Insurance Specialty Solutions is a marketing brand for the insurance company subsidiaries of Intact Insurance Group USA LLC, an indirect subsidiary of Intact Financial Corporation (TSX: IFC), the largest provider of property and casualty insurance in Canada that has successfully exported its strengths across North America, the UK, and Europe. Its growing commercial and specialty solutions network now spans over 150 countries. The insurance company subsidiaries of Intact Insurance Group USA LLC include Atlantic Specialty Insurance Company, a New York insurer, which wholly owns Homeland Insurance Company of New York, a New York insurer; Homeland Insurance Company of Delaware, a Delaware insurer; OBI America Insurance Company, a Pennsylvania insurer; and OBI National Insurance Company, a Pennsylvania insurer. Each of these insurers maintains its principal place of business at 605 Highway 169 N, Plymouth, MN 55441. For information about Intact Financial Corporation, visit intactfc.com.
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“At Intact, we have our own internal experts who understand the coverages, understand the risks – they won’t just write a check; they dive in to understand it and ask the right questions”
Jeff Bellmont,
Intact Insurance
“Those built for AI workloads are meaningfully more dense than the data centers we’ve seen over the last decade. And with that, they require more power, more cooling, and more connectivity. From an insurance perspective, this all adds to the complexity – both in terms of the items that you’re insuring inside and also the risk that comes with possible business interruption.
“It’s all changing quickly. And while it’s easy to focus on the big $20 billion data centers, there’s also a lot of change in the more ‘average-sized’ data-center builds, as well as existing data centers, that the industry needs to be aware of.”
This market, as Bellmont tells IB, is showing no signs of slowing down. Global data-center spending is projected to reach $7 trillion by 2030, with the US accounting for the dominant share of investment, according to McKinsey; even average-sized centers now cost between $500 million and $2 billion to build. And, because of the sheer size and scale of these projects, having a partner who supports you throughout the whole data-center life cycle is essential.
Published June 29, 2026
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“While the demand is going up, there’s also a need for speed – so our broker partners are trying to get placements done very quickly”
Jeff Bellmont,
Intact Insurance
“There’s a supply-demand dynamic that we’re trying to sort out as a market here,” adds Bellmont. “While insurers have dug deep to find the capacity thus far, there remains an open question as to whether that will continue to be the case as these $20 billion projects transition to operational assets, and aggregation risks become more real.”
‘At Intact, we’re really good at understanding the complexities’ While those mega-projects dominate sector attention, the real challenge often lies in the transition points between different phases of a data center’s development. As Bellmont tells IB, when it comes to the construction phase of building data centers, there’s not too much difference from other
construction projects in terms of risk – it’s only when internal contents come into play that this changes. And it’s these changes that demand expertise.
“At Intact, we’re really good at understanding the complexities,” he explains. “And that extends beyond the data centers themselves to our underwriting and engineering expertise in things like the power, renewables, and energy-storage components that are both critical to a project’s success but also add a layer of risk and complexity. You could have holes in the coverage as you’re going from one phase to the next; you could have holes in the coverage when you’re insuring one part but not the other.
“At Intact, our view is that we don’t necessarily have to insure the full life cycle, but we do have to understand all parts of that cycle in order to help brokers and customers.”
It’s this holistic, end-to-end support with industry experts that really sets Intact apart in the market. Because in specialized sectors, being everything to everyone isn’t going to cut it – today’s complex markets need people who know their specialty inside and out.
“At Intact, we understand it all, and we can do it all, but that doesn’t mean we need to classify everything under one risk. There will be times when we just cover the construction property, and there will be times where we cover the full life cycle of a data center.”
These challenges become even more pronounced given the fragmented nature of modern data-center placements.
“These [policies] are being written out of multiple places, whether that’s London and the US or London and Canada,” adds Bellmont. “[Essentially], it’s important to understand the whole [project], it’s important to be involved where it makes sense, and it’s important to coordinate internally so that it’s not difficult for the external broker and customer who have to deal with multiple different insurance companies at the same time.”
Data-center occupancy rates are projected to peak at above 95% in late 2026 – up from around 85% in 2023 – as AI demand outpaces new supply, according to Goldman Sachs Research. And with the demand for AI constantly on the rise, the sheer need for these data centers has the propensity to fundamentally change the way risks are assessed and written.
“The unique demands and design specs of AI-purposed data centers mean the risks are different in some ways,” adds Bellmont, “but the way we’re assessing them isn’t changing as dramatically as the scale those risks are growing. It’s about pulling in experts from [varying] backgrounds too, because the complexity of what they’re building is new to a lot of underwriters. At Intact, we’re fortunate that we’ve underwritten this within our Technology group for a long time – we have risk engineers; we have technology experts and power and renewable-energy professionals. From our perspective, in terms of being able to handle the demand, we’re already used to dealing with lots and lots of risks.”
‘It’s very important that we’re well coordinated’ While the risks might not be completely new, the positioning of data centers within the market is. Sitting at the intersection of property, cyber, energy, and business interruption, these centers require a fully integrated approach to coverage.
“It’s very important that we’re well coordinated,” adds Bellmont. “While the demand is going up, there’s also a need for speed – so our broker partners are trying to get placements done very quickly. And if we’re patchy internally, it makes it hard for that speed to happen.
“It’s also important that, within a tower, the coverages work together well. It’s less important to have the same policy over three years because the risk itself is changing, so it doesn’t need to be continuous, but it’s very important that we’re coordinated internally, such that transition points between phases and coverages are managed logically and in a way that’s transparent to customers. And, to the extent possible, if it can all be one package policy, all the better – but it’s not totally required across all the coverages or the life cycle of the policy. It just needs to be very thoughtful and intelligent.”
One of the biggest concerns surrounding the coverage of these data centers is the resilience aspect – whether that’s uptime, power dependency, or supply-chain disruption. From Bellmont’s perspective, concerns here depend upon the number of tenants on a policy and whether they have the funds to install a backup power supply.
“With data centers, just a few minutes of downtime is a massive problem,” adds Bellmont. “People are worried about that. The insurance industry is in the early stages of planning, and building these centers, everyone’s trying to ensure that any issues they could run into are addressed. Ensuring that if a center’s power goes down, you have a backup source.”
As Bellmont tells IB, this issue sits at the crux between property losses and cyber losses. How do clients ensure they have the same backups in place from both a cyberattack and property-loss perspective – so that if they’re hacked in one place, they’re not hacked in the other?
“Take, for example, a dairy manufacturer,” says Bellmont. “You’d hope they’d have another plant where they can ship the milk and turn it into cheese if something goes wrong – otherwise they’ll have a huge business-interruption loss. The concepts are the same – there needs to be a focus on downtime and ensuring operations are instantly transferred to somewhere else in the event of different risk scenarios.”
‘Consistency is a key theme here’ As digital infrastructure becomes increasingly important to the broader global economy, having a strong insurance partner here is essential.
“Six percent of electricity in the US is being used by data centers,” reveals Bellmont. “That’s a massive number – and it's only increasing. In this environment, an insurance partner should be looking for solutions that ensure they can get the coverage that they need. And, like any new big risk, there are elements that can seem immediately concerning to insurance carriers – some tied to the specific risk, others related to aggregation. Carriers that are unable to address these challenges – particularly those that cannot provide and appropriately price capacity for individual risks – could face significant headline-making losses.”
On the issue of aggregation, Bellmont explains that it’s important to manage risk here in order to build and grow, ensuring you’re upfront and thoughtful about the whole process.
“Consistency is a key theme here – you have to be very thoughtful upfront so that you’re consistent over the next few years – don’t yo-yo on price or on appetite. We battle that a little bit internally, because [ultimately] we want to help but at the same time we don’t want to go too fast and then have to pull back. Being innovative, being flexible, and being consistent will be important – the more you do this, the better partner you are. And at Intact that’s where we’re all about – bringing our capabilities to bear where it makes sense.”
Intact sits at the intersection here of expertise, specialty, and innovation in coverage – because when it comes to writing these nuanced markets, carriers can’t be everything to everyone. Having deeply embedded knowledge is the differentiator between a good partner and a great one.
“As a partner, you really have to be innovative,” adds Bellmont. “And in order to be innovative, you have to understand the specialty. Not every firm out there has underwriters and risk engineers that really get it – who can dive into each of the pockets. That’s where Intact is positioned – we’re not the biggest insurer, but we happen to have expertise in all the places where data-center clients need it.”
This expertise also extends into their claims processes and professionals – something that can’t be understated when disaster hits.
“When there’s a loss, you better be lined up, ready to understand it and respond to it quickly,” adds Bellmont. “Treat it with the same speed and urgency as you would on the underwriting side. At Intact, we have our own internal experts who understand the coverages, understand the risks – they won’t just write a check; they really dive in to understand it and ask the right questions.
“That’s an important part for insurance companies – not just a competitive advantage but as an industry as a whole. Because if we’re not there to respond well on the promise we made, it won’t go well for this critical part of our economy.”
This article is provided for general informational purposes only and does not constitute and is not intended to take the place of legal or risk-management advice. Readers should consult their own legal counsel or other representatives for such advice. Any and all third-party websites or sources referred to herein are for informational purposes only and are not affiliated with or endorsed by Intact Insurance Group USA LLC (“Intact”). Intact hereby disclaims any and all liability arising out of the information contained herein.
Data-center construction starts surged to $77.7 billion in 2025, a 190% year-over-year increase, with Q4 alone accounting for $44.4 billion
Average data-center costs rose 70% in 2025, reaching $633 million per project and $1,033 per square foot, driven by surging demand
With $88 billion in preconstruction projects and a forecasted 70% rebound in power infrastructure spending, 2026 could surpass 2025’s record growth
data-center construction:
rising costs
Source: ConstructConnect
Private-sector spending on data- centre construction reached $41.1 billion
in 2025, up from just $1.8 billion in 2014. As of March 2026, annualized private-construction spending had climbed to $49.5 billion, with data centres now accounting for 45.7% of all private-office construction in the US, up from 12.8% in 2021.
exponential
growth
Source: Statista