Data Centres
Manage risk at every phase of the data centre lifecycle
The infrastructure buildout powering AI and cloud computing has outpaced the insurance programs designed to protect it. Data centres now rank among the most complex, capital-intensive projects underway today, and the risk looks different at every stage of the lifecycle, from the developer breaking ground and the general contractor managing the build, to the private equity investor backing the deal and the operator running a live facility. Construction and property programs shaped around conventional assets weren't built to follow that shift. HUB's data centre specialists work alongside clients at every stage, structuring programs built for what each phase demands.
Domain Challenges
Risk shifts at every phase of the data centre lifecycle
Data centre risks evolve as construction progresses through commissioning and handover to full operations. Exposures shift with each phase, and the handoffs between phases are where most coverage gaps originate. HUB's data centre specialists bring structured expertise across construction, transition and operations to build programs that hold together end to end.
Most brokers can place a builder's risk policy. However, data centre construction represents an entirely different challenge given the scale, pace and complexity of modern data centre projects. Developers, general contractors and private equity investors are managing tightening builder's risk capacity, limited appetite for delay and business interruption-type risk, and accelerated schedules that compress every coverage decision, often alongside contractual and operational exposures with little or no commercially available insurance to address them. This complexity has strained traditional insurance markets to their limits, requiring a fundamental rethink about how these assets are modelled and insured. HUB structures builder's risk, testing and commissioning coverage, equipment breakdown during installation and wrap-up programs, including owner-controlled and contractor-controlled insurance programs (OCIP/CCIP), for complex multi-phase projects. The result is a program that holds through every phase of the build, instead of one that needs to be rebuilt at each stage.
The period between substantial completion and full operations is one of the highest-risk windows in a data centre's life. Builder's risk policies terminate, and operational property programs need to be structured, submitted and bound before the facility goes live, precisely when new systems are least tested. Most coverage gaps in this window aren't the result of a missed deadline. They come from treating construction and operations as two separate insurance conversations instead of one continuous one. HUB's construction and property teams work in parallel through this window, conducting gap analysis and aligning owners, lenders and investors so operational coverage activates the moment the builder's risk policy ceases.
Operators managing live facilities face growing underwriting scrutiny on massive property schedules, evolving cyber risks and the challenge of setting appropriate replacement cost values for highly specialized hardware. A cybersecurity incident can cause direct physical damage to cooling and power management systems, and it can just as easily trigger business interruption losses with no physical damage at all. Property and cyber policies often leave both gaps open. HUB structures data centre business interruption, equipment breakdown, contingent business interruption, service interruption and delay in startup coverage alongside cyber insurance that addresses cyber-physical convergence directly. Portfolio benchmarking and total cost of risk modelling support these coverages across every site.
Solution Areas
Purpose-built coverage for every phase and every participant in the data centre ecosystem
Data centre risk does not belong to a single type of organization. Hyperscalers, co-location operators, enterprise organizations running dedicated corporate data centres and the general contractors, developers and owners who build, finance and manage those facilities all carry distinct exposures that conventional insurance programs aren’t built to address. HUB’s data centre specialists bring carrier access, technical knowledge and coordinated placement strategies to every participant in the ecosystem, structuring coverage that reflects the operational realities of each lifecycle phase, from construction through decommissioning, rather than coverage adapted after the fact.
Comprehensive data centre property insurance and casualty coverage built for the scale and complexity of data centre operations, including builder's risk, property, data centre business interruption, equipment breakdown, contingent business interruption, service interruption, delay in startup and general liability.
Coverage for the financial and operational exposures unique to data centre owners, operators and developers, including data centre cyber insurance covering both traditional cyber liability and cyber-physical damage to infrastructure, coverage for AI infrastructure and high-density compute environments, directors and officers (D&O) liability, management professional liability, errors and omissions (E&O), environmental impairment liability, on-site power generation, commercial surety and parametric catastrophe solutions.
Specialized coverage for every stage of data centre development, including builder's risk with catastrophe (CAT) sublimits, testing and commissioning coverage, equipment breakdown during installation, soft cost extensions, cargo and marine, contractor pollution and professional liability, and wrap-up programs (OCIP/CCIP) for complex multi-phase projects.
Proactive risk management and claims support throughout the data centre lifecycle, including business continuity planning, complex business interruption claims management, post-loss asset reconstruction, catastrophe modelling, contractor performance assessment and loss prevention consulting.
Proprietary analytics and data platforms supporting contractor risk modelling, operational risk analytics, portfolio benchmarking, cost-of-risk modelling, live catastrophe monitoring and schedule of values optimization.
