A historic build‑out of data centre capacity across the US and Canada is transforming not only digital infrastructure, but also how risk is financed and insured. Speaking during a recent webinar on the data centre infrastructure boom, senior leaders from Marsh and Guy Carpenter argued that the benefits of this wave of investment are beginning to extend beyond hyperscale operators – with important implications for insurance.
Responding to a question from Insurance Business Canada on whether the anticipated infrastructure boom will trickle down to SMEs and what this means for insurance, the speakers agreed that there is a clear case to be made that it will.
Jeremy Goodman, chief client & growth officer at Guy Carpenter, said early signs suggest the answer is 'yes'.
“We’re seeing a significant number of the older data centres get refurbished, and the value of those refurbishments continues to increase,” Goodman said. “We do anticipate that it will trickle down to some of the smaller developers and sponsors. That’s certainly an area, both on the insurance and reinsurance side, [where there’s] been a little bit of an uptick.”
That shift, he noted, is changing how carriers and reinsurers approach the segment.
Goodman noted that insurers and reinsurers are now better positioned to deliver the comprehensive solutions these clients require, adding that while further development is needed to meet the needs of the largest hyperscalers fully, meaningful progress has already been made.
For smaller and mid-size developers, that means access to more structured, portfolio-oriented programs rather than one-off covers, and insurers that better understand the specific blend of construction, operational and technology risks involved in modern data centre projects.
But if opportunity is broadening, the risk profile is also becoming far more complex, according to Mike Mathews, global digital infrastructure leader at Marsh.
Mathews described an environment where both new entrants and seasoned players are taking on unprecedentedly large, parallel projects.
“You have first‑time developers, or very established data centre developers building two large infrastructure projects at once,” he said. “They’re going to build their own power and they’re going to build a powered shell or powered island, or a fully capable data centre with services and all sorts of measures to hit the mark.”
In that context, speed has become both a competitive necessity and a critical risk factor.
Mathews warned that uncompromising speed to delivery has become one of the most significant risks in the current environment. Ten years ago, he noted, a 200‑megawatt build was challenging but relatively standardized.
“I don’t want to call it cookie-cutter, but everybody understood it,” he said. “Now you’re talking about two very large‑scale infrastructure projects inside the same fence line being built at once. The complexity of risk and the velocity of risk in that ecosystem is difficult.”
On top of that, rapid technology change is forcing a continual re-think of how these projects are insured. From liquid cooling and chip‑level technologies to emerging forms of backup power, the risk characteristics of a modern data centre are evolving quickly.
“Layer onto that innovation… [and] we have to educate the insurance markets on a continuous basis on this innovation, the technology and the changes that are coming,” Mathews said. “They [need to] go from bleeding edge to leading edge.”
Successfully bringing these projects to revenue-generating status requires tight coordination across the ecosystem – investors, owner-operators, developers, OEMs, and insurers must synchronize construction schedules, secure critical components, and adapt to rapidly changing technologies, all while managing risk and meeting tenant expectations.
“It’s all hands on deck,” Mathews said.
