Willis Insurance has introduced an eight-point digital infrastructure framework that classifies data centers as a separate insurance system class. The firm says the change reflects a change in the risk profile of data centers. This was influenced by the role that DC assets now play in cloud and AI workloads.
In announcing the framework on Jan. 28, Willis says that traditional approaches based on single-tier real estate investments do not reflect the operational or financial realities of large data center portfolios. In his view, modern devices operate as interconnected infrastructure with dependencies that span energy, networks and supply chains and transcend geopolitics. Losses tend to be correlated within a single policy or a single line of business.
Willis said it has secured more than $3 billion in underwriting capacity for hyperscale development, expects the data center segment to generate around $10 billion in premiums in 2026, the numbers show how the market has expanded, and a reassessment of how capital is allocated to the sector.
George Haitsch, head of the North American technology, media and telecommunications industry at Willis, said data centers now resemble critical elements of the supply chain. Exposures are broader and more complex than anticipated in previous underwriting models. He said insurance needs to be structured as a framework that includes risk mitigation early in design and construction.
The firm describes its policy as ceasing to treat data centers as high-limit asset accounts and managing them as a cross-class infrastructure portfolio. From this perspective, property damage, construction risk, cyber security events, political influence, and service disruptions may be dependent on other factors and should be considered as a whole. Willis said its framework is designed to address risks throughout the facility lifecycle, with a particular focus on protecting the balance sheet for DC owners and operators.
Energy security is at the center of these concerns. Increased energy consumption in AI-controlled campuses means an increased likelihood of business interruption losses associated with network failures. Such events can affect multiple sites simultaneously, especially where devices rely on the same infrastructure.
FM said it insures about 1,100 data centers with a combined insured value of about $250 billion, a figure that reflects the cost of buildings and equipment and is indicative of potential business interruption losses and companies backing out of any service-level agreements.
The data center outage coverage market has expanded recently. A recent market analysis estimated global dedicated data center outage insurance premiums at around $3.9 billion in 2024, and there are projections that this could double by 2033. The growth in this segment is partly explained by the higher economic dependence on the continuous availability of DC.
The Willis framework shows how large brokerages and insurance companies are moving data centers across their portfolios. Instead of DC being a niche corner of commercial real estate, devices are increasingly seen as core digital infrastructure. In AI-focused economies, such reclassification has implications for underwriting and risk accumulation that are constantly evolving.
(Image source: “Neon Insurance Office Sign” by David Hilowitz is licensed under CC BY 2.0.)
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